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Detailed research report on health care services in Sweden with marketshare and growth rates for 18 sectors (HBI Intelligence)
Database of the top 250+ private health care operators, including profile and major external investors across 18 sub-sectors from diagnostic labs to domiciliary homecare and from telehealth to hospitals (HBI Intelligence)
Merger and acquisition (M&A) intelligence showing likelihood of sale (HBI Intelligence)
News stories and interviews with operators and investors in Sweden (HBI Deals and Insights)
Events that cover health care services globally including Sweden (HBI 2024)
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Country ReportSweden Country
Updated: June 2023
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Impact of Covid-19
We are in the process of analyzing the impact of Covid all countries in HBI Intelligence and should have updates on market sizes by the end of May for the 5 largest economies and by the end of June for others. Meanwhile we are covering the impact of Covid in news stories. Recent examples include a detailed examination of the impact on French and German hospitals, an article on labs and imaging and a look at the broad elective sector.
Background
Swedish healthcare is managed at three levels. At the national level, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs establishes principles and guidelines for care and sets the political agenda for health and medical care. The ministry along with other government bodies supervises activities at the lower levels, allocates grants and periodically evaluates services to ensure correspondence to national goals. At regional level healthcare is run by the 21 counties, these manage and control hospitals and regulate prices and services for private providers. At the local level, 290 municipalities are responsible for elderly care, rehab and psychiatric services.
Whilst there was a wave of hospital privatisations the facilities sold off were mainly excess to requirements and often converted to more specialist use. More recently, there has been a backlash against private equity investors putting money into companies whose activities are paid for by public payors and yet have tax structures which mean they pay almost no tax. This led to the setting up of a Parliamentary commission to investigate the sector and to recommend profit levels which should not be exceeded.
The commission has yet to report but private sources are confident that there is now a majority in parliament in favour of the private sector and against setting specific profit targets. It is also true that, generally, EBITDA margins in Sweden are lower than in mainland Europe for many operators.
Market size
The World Bank estimates that total healthcare expenditure in Sweden is around €70bn, with the private sector representing around 20% of this.
See the full report for further details on market share, including an interview with the Director of Healthcare Research at Credit Suisse, among others.
Insurance
Despite its very strong universal coverage, some 1m Swedes have some form of supplementary private medical insurance. There is also an occupational healthcare sector, due to statutory requirements on employers. The European Observatory report 2012 put PMI at 0.2% of all funding and stated that 4% of the population had PMI, in most cases from employers.
Below are two example extracts from the sector breakdowns. See the report for full details on each sector. See the table of contents for information on which sectors are represented in the report.
Dialysis
As of the end of 2018, there were 4,100 patients receiving dialysis treatment: 75% haemodialysis (growing 1.5-2.5% a year), 3% home haemodialysis and 22% peritoneal dialysis (both fairly stagnant), leaving overall growth at 1-2%.
Like other wealthy Northern European countries, Sweden outsources little of its dialysis to the private sector, just 8-12% according to an operator. Diaverum has just five centres while B Braun and Fresenius Medical Care have one each.
They add that decisions against outsourcing are taken without justification in terms of price and quality. One example is the Skane region which insourced a contract with Diaverum in 2016. Sweden is Diaverum’s home market, but it is now a tiny part of the business. Laboratory Services
There are only two players in the whole of Sweden's for-profit market. Pan-European player Unilabs and Aleris Medilab, a subsidiary of integrated care provider Aleris, together make up a market of around €100m.
The public sector spends around €600m on labs, making the total market worth 700m. The private/public funding split is even greater, with 10% of tests paid for by private customers and 90% paid from the public purse. There are some outsourcing contracts, based mainly in Stockholm, but these are tendered on price alone, so margins are low.
See the report for full details on each sector, including further details on the two above. See the table of contents for information on which sectors are represented in the report.
What we offer
- Instant overview of the Swedish market This report gives you visibility of this fast-growing market detailed profiles of the Top 221 players.
- Ever green! Updated throughout your subscription As part of our HBI intelligence platform this report is updated throughout the period of your subscription. You will also receive additional news stories and interviews on Sweden throughout the period.
- Insights on business models The report looks at the main models – private hospitals and lab and dialysis outsourcing.
- Identify national opportunities We assess opportunities at national level. - Size markets This report enables you to swiftly see market sizes and market shares at a sub-sector level
- Save time and money This report will save you time researching this opaque market and enable you to swiftly identify investment opportunities, new partners and markets.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Sweden – National overview
Background
Market size
Insurance
Dentistry
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Dialysis
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Hospital
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Imaging Services
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Laboratory Services
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Medicalised Homecare
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Nursing Homes
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Occupational Healthcare
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Post-acute Rehabilitation
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Psychiatry and Mental Health
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Telehealth primary
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Teleradiology
Data sets For-profit /private market size and growth rates 2016-2020 Marketshare of major players 2018
Market description and trends.
Sweden News & Interviews
Our indepth stories dig deep and cover profit multiples, revenue, EBITDA and CEO thinking.
This week’s infographic covers the largest elderly care operators in Sweden in 2025, highlighting both their total group revenues and their Sweden elderly care (nursing and care home) revenues....
Bergman Clinics is a multinational European clinic chain that focuses on elective medical specialist (secondary) care done in an outpatient setting. In a conversation with HBI Jeroen Cammeraat, CEO, explained how being focused on high volume elective procedure...
Sweden’s largest care home provider, Ambea, has launched a recommended takeover offer SEK 2.9 billion (~€252 million) for Humana, currently the third largest care home operator in Sweden by revenue....
This week's infographic looks at the largest PE deals in EMEA pharma services & life sciences, covering transactions announced or completed in 2025....
Finland-based pan-European healthcare group Mehiläinen is buying pan-Nordic outpatient group Aleris from private equity firm Triton, marking Mehiläinen’s entry into Norway and Denmark. The combined group will have €3.7 billion revenue and be present in n...
Nordic occupational health provider Avonova is exploring a potential sale, with private equity firms understood to be in early-stage discussions, according to sources close to the matter. ...
This week's infographic covers the top five elderly care (residential) providers in Europe, ranked by their 2024 revenue.
The data has been sourced from the HBI Intelligence database.
Europe’s top four elderly care groups are all French players. Pan...
This week’s infographic aggregates the 2024 total revenues of the top 100 hospital groups across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, segmented by country, exposing distinct concentrations of market size and investment intensity.
The data has been sourc...
Database of 250 Sweden service providers
HBI has built a unique database of the Top 4,000 operators globally in health care services. As part of this we have identified the top 250 operators in Sweden.
Profiles include revenue/sales data as well as EBITDA and other profit margins where known. They also cover private equity ownership with dates and mergers and acquisitions.
Mergers & Acquisition (M&A) Intelligence
Our deal pipeline shows how likely all private equity and some privately companies are to sell based on algorithms and journalistic know-how.
HBI 2024 – the only CEO-level conference to cover healthcare services globally
HBI 2020 – the only CEO-level conference to cover healthcare services globally
In 2019 this event brought together 700 delegates from over 40 countries. Over 60% are CEO level and they included 150 specialist investors in health care services.
HBI 2020 includes a session on the Nordic region, including a discussion on telehealth in Sweden. Speakers from Sweden are present in sessions on Digital Health, Elderly Care and Nursing Homes, to name a few.
Other sessions will look at trends in hospitals and labs as well as investment and merger and acquisition, plus digital health and telehealth.
In the wake of Covid, we have developed an exciting range of digital events, HBI-365.
Contact us in the UK on 0207 183 3779 for more information.
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