MEDICS TAKE A CRACK AT COCAINE

The country’s canniest business operators did’nt get where they are today by missing the moment. We did a double take nonetheless when we saw an advertisement placed last week by Charter Medical Group, the private health clinic backed by Paddy Kelly, the wealthy property developer, and John Gallagher, the businessman behind a number of diagnostics companies (and not to be confused with his namesake of Jurys Doyle Hotel Group repute).

According to the ad, the company is taking bookings for a “unique and discreet stay-at-work, home based detox programme tailored to treat clients with cocaine dependency and other soft drug dependency”. Charter Medical was set up last year and opened a €20 million clinic in Smithfield in Dublin, where Kelly has been developing a number of properties. The shareholders are Kelly, Gallagher and the Kelly offspring.

David Shanahan, Charter’s Chief Executive and former Irish boss of the multinational pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, confirms the programme has just been launched, but says the timing around the current national obsession over drug abuse is “coincidental”.

The treatment will probably cost €10,000 plus according to Shanahan who expects plenty of custom. “We will probably focus on cocaine as the private market is undeserved”. He also tells us that Charter has scaled back its expansion ambition as a chill wind blows through the property investment market.

Last summer, it was talking about raising €100 million to build a nationwide network of up to 20 “stepdown” centres, which treat people who do not need to be inhospital, but still require medical care. That push is on ice and the focus has been switched to “targeted” fundraising and expanding services.

“It’s a matter of burrowing away for a while and seeing what works and what doesn’t”, Shanahan said.