April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Sweden's billionaire Wallenberg family is leading a group that may sell Gambro Healthcare, an owner of dialysis clinics in 15 countries, four people with knowledge of the plan said.

The Gambro AB unit, which has 160 clinics that treat about 13,000 patients, may be worth $800 million, said two of the people. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has been hired to review potential offers, said the people, declining to be identified as details of the sale haven't been made public.

More than $43 billion is spent on dialysis and services for kidney-failure patients, according to Gambro. Demand is being fueled by an increase in diabetes, which can lead to kidney disease. The need for dialysis in developing countries such as China and India is growing by 8 percent to 10 percent a year.

``Growth in the health-care sector is above gross domestic product growth and cash flow generation is good'' among those companies, said Britta Holt, a director at Fitch Ratings in London.

Dialysis cleans the blood in people with kidney failure to keep them from developing uremia, a toxic condition resulting from the build-up of waste products usually excreted in urine.

Wallenberg Holdings

The Wallenbergs have board seats on about one third of companies on the OMX Stockholm 30 Index through their holding company, Investor AB, and family foundations. Investor AB owns stakes in Ericsson AB, the world's biggest maker of mobile networks, and Electrolux, the second-largest maker of household appliances.

The family last year took over Gambro, the world's largest maker of kidney dialysis products, in a transaction valued at $5.4 billion. The Wallenbergs had owned 19.9 percent of the company before they made the purchase with EQT Partners AB, a Stockholm-based buyout firm partly owned by the family.

The new owners said in November that they would split Gambro AB's businesses into three divisions. Gambro Renal Products makes products for dialysis machines and provides blood purification for hospital intensive care units. Gambro BCT sells blood collection and separation equipment, and the health-care division operates facilities in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia.

Gambro sold its U.S. clinics to rival DaVita Inc. for $3.1 billion in 2004. As part of the agreement, Gambro is the preferred supplier of renal products to DaVita.

Investor AB spokesman Oscar Stege Unger and Thomas Von Koch, an EQT executive who sits on Gambro's board, declined to comment, as did Simon Eaton, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs.

Stockholm-based Investor AB agreed to buy wound care treatment maker Moelnlycke Health Care AB in January for 2.85 billion euros ($3.9 billion), beating two rival offers from private equity firms.

EQT agreed this year to buy Dako Denmark A/S for 7.25 billion Danish kroner ($1.3 billion) to gain medical tests used to diagnose cancer.

Buyout firms use a combination of their own funds and debt to pay for takeovers. They then typically seek to expand those companies or improve performance before selling them within five years to other funds or to investors through stock offerings.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ambereen Choudhury in London at achoudhury@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 18, 2007 08:43 EDT