The clinic selling ‘scientific wellness’ in the heart of Bangkok
Bangkok Dusit Medical Services is fast becoming a global leader when it comes to “scientific wellness”. Monocle visits the Lumphini neighbourhood clinic to glimpse what a true picture of health looks like.
Wellness is a fast-growing industry in Thailand and Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS), the country’s largest private health-care group, has set its sights on becoming a global leader. Thailand’s flagbearer for preventative medicine, BDMS has a flagship address in central Bangkok and a portfolio to match, including 60 hospitals, drug-making laboratories and a nationwide pharmacy with more than 140 stores.
A decade ago, the group’s late founder, Prasert Prasarttong-Osoth, decided to build the standalone BDMS Wellness Clinic in the Thai capital’s Lumphini neighbourhood and appointed doctor-turned-longevity-guru Tanupol Virunhagarun (also known as Dr Amp) as its CEO.
The clinic now accounts for 12 per cent of the wider group’s revenue. Dr Amp plans to reach 20 percent within the next five years. Across eight storeys, its services range from fertility and brain health to an on-site lab making personalised supplements. Its suite of blood tests, scans and other procedures measures organ health, hormone levels, cancer risk, muscle density and biological age.
The gold standard “Blueprint” package to screen for cancers, degenerative illnesses and gut biomes costs €15,000 and requires upwards of 20 tubes of blood, a team of doctors and a catalogue of machines. “We call this scientific wellness,” says Virunhagarun when Monocle visits. “Coronavirus helped us by raising awareness and encouraging people to take better care of themselves.”
The clinic is designed to look more like a house than a hospital; a chandelier-strewn home that’s accustomed to welcoming royalty (princesses and sheiks get to use a special lift). “Health is the new luxury and we sell life to people around the world,” says Virunhagarun. Some 70 per cent of patients are international and many fly in from the Middle East. Monocle spots several middle-aged men from the Gulf roaming the clinic in blue pyjamas, while wives and kids move from couch to couch, waiting for dad to finish.
By the end of the decade, these family visits several times a year could turn into a more permanent arrangement. Last year, the BDMS Wellness Clinic broke ground on a mega-complex called Wellera, slated for 2029. The mixed-used development will combine a hotel, clinic, fitness studio, retail, restaurants and 262 residences on a plot overlooking Lumpini Park.
The €400m investment is double what BDMS spent on the flagship clinic a short drive away. Besides hospital-grade air and water across the two towers, a nurses’ station will be manned around the clock, ambulances will be on standby and a helicopter ready to fly to Bangkok Hospital. Virunhagarun talks about a drone pad for transporting clients at even greater speed. “No one in the world has done a wellness concept like this before,” he tells Monocle before we head off for a swim and an early night.
bdmswellness.com