Ayala Corp.’s health-care arm, Ayala Health, is bullish on expanding its presence nationwide this year through an aggressive rollout of its clinic and pharmacy businesses.
This forms part of the group’s strengthening of its health-care service network, specifically its Generika retail drugstores and newly launched primary-care clinics, FamilyDOC.
Paolo Borromeo, Ayala Health CEO, said the Generika unit aims to grow its network of 614 stores to 1,000, until 2020.
Carissa Alejandro, health-care consultant at Ayala Health, said this year alone, they plan to add 120 to the network.
Out of the 120, only 10 percent will be company-owned; the rest will be franchised, following the company’s business model.
Thirty-six of the 120 stores will be located in the Visayas and Mindanao areas as part of the company strategy to strengthen its presence outside of Luzon.
“We’ll do a lot more expansion in the Visayas and Mindanao, but a majority right now is still in Luzon,” Borromeo said.
For FamilyDOC clinics, launched in December 2015, the target is to establish 100 centers by 2020, from the existing two in Cavite and Las Piñas. This year Ayala Health is eyeing to open four clinics in Dasmariñas, Imus, Las Piñas and Bacoor, and investing anywhere between P6 million and P9 million per clinic. FamilyDOC is Ayala Health’s bid into the clinic space, a chain of community-based primary-care clinics specifically catering to middle-income families.
“About 80 percent of cases in ER units are not actually for emergency. It’s just that people don’t know where to go, so there’s a need for primary-care services,” Alejandro said.
To underscore the affordability of clinic services, FamilyDOC’s consultation fees are 35 percent lower than the average, or starting at just P350.
Borromeo said FamilyDOC may be open for franchise in the future, but currently all new centers will be company-owned.
Ayala Corp. has invested over half a trillion pesos in capital expenditure (capex) over the last five years, and employs nearly 90,000 workers across its businesses.
For this year, the company is slated to invest P174 billion in capex and is setting aside P22.4 billion for capital spending in the parent-company level.