US-based Chindex International, which this week opened a second joint-venture hospital in China, announced plans to open a third. More ward-sized than hospital-sized, the 50-bed, US$10 million Shanghai United Family Hospital is 70% owned by Chindex; Changning District central hospital holds the balance. The company's first hospital opened in Beijing in 1997. A third is planned for Xiamen. According to a South China Morning Post report, Chindex succeeded where Formosa Plastics Chairman Wang Yung-ching has so far failed. The tycoon's effort to build a US$500 million four-hosital network covering Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Xiamen, with up to 5,000 beds each, has been repeatedly blocked.