Medical education: Sanar does M&A funded by Peninsula and Green Rock

Sanar — the medical education platform invested by DNA Capital — has just purchased Cetrus, whose subspecialty courses will complement the company’s portfolio and provide access to a substantially larger average ticket.

Sanar paid R$ 166 million for Cetrus – part in cash, part in shares.

To finance the acquisition, the startup has just raised a round that included the participation of Península Investimentos, owned by Abilio Diniz, and Green Rock, the family office of the founders of Salomão Zoppi. They also followed up all the investors who were already in the captable: DNA, Valor Capital and Vox Capital.

Founded 26 years ago by two doctors specializing in gynecology, Cetrus began by offering imaging courses (for example, how to do an ultrasound). Over time, it saw the opportunity to expand its offering by moving into the use of imaging in specialties and, more recently, in so-called sub-specialties.

Today, the company offers courses such as digestive endoscopy, hormonal implantation and advanced procedures in pain management and fetal medicine. These sub-specialization courses have a very high ticket, costing BRL 50-60 thousand.

The co-founder of Sanar, Ubiraci Mercês, told the Brazil Journal that the main rationale for the acquisition “is to bring into Sanar another stage of the physician’s educational journey.”

Sanar started in 2014 serving the student with a platform called SanarFlix, which offers video and text content to undergraduate students. Then he entered residency preparation courses and the so-called first specialization. Now, close the loop with sub-specialization.

“With Cetrus, we now cover 90% of the physician’s journey. We have in fact become the platform with the longest journey time for this professional,” he said. “But there are still a lot of course offerings and specialties that we can give, in addition to a little piece of the journey that is even more specialized than sub-specialization.”

According to him, there are residencies that last from 6 to 7 years and that form the doctor as a specialist, sub-specialist and sub-sub-specialist. “But that last part is a very small piece,” he said.

Cetrus operates in a market dominated by residencies at universities such as USP and by sub-specialization courses at private hospitals, such as Einstein, Sírio-Libânes and Moinhos de Vento – but the startup says it has advantages over these players.

“The frontier of medicine is advancing at a much faster rate than residencies are able to offer their courses,” said Ubiraci. “Robotics in urology is an example: until the residency makes the decision to invest in the equipment, which costs US$ 1-2 million, it can take some time, and in the meantime Cetrus has already taken the lead.”

From the point of view of private hospitals, Ubiraci said that the great differential of Cetrus courses is that hospitals are directed to attend to the patient, while Cetrus is focused on the doctor.

“The doctor needs practical training, and it is difficult for a hospital to let a doctor who is still learning to operate,” he said. “At Cetrus, we import cadavers for them to train and, after training, we place them with real patients under the supervision of a specialist in the field.”

Source: Brazil Journal