Are we to see this sign soon at many city places? Indeed so, going by today’s TT report. If you’ve no clue what Fortis is, well it’s the healthcare arm of Delhi-based drug makers, Ranbaxy Laboratories. With quite a few hospitals to its credit mainly in Delhi, Fortis now plans to launch retail health stores, 1000 of them in 400 towns by 2012. [Image source on left]
Grand plan no doubt, but Fortis will be traversing the path set by Apollo Pharmacy, the health store subsidiary of Apollo Hospitals Ltd. Apollo Pharmacy already has presence in major metros, 12 of them in Delhi, at least 5 in Kolkata, and many more each in 3 big southern cities, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
To Fortis’ credit, if their plan works on ground, we will for the first time be seeing their shops selling allopathic, homeopathy and ayurvedic medicines under one roof. That’s not all, each Fortis shop will have pathology lab collection center, and will expectedly run 24 hours.
Since medical care relies heavily on credibility and trust, Fortis is going to train, test and certify each of their employees that will man the medicine outlets. Clearly, the day of organized retail has truly and surely dawned on what will now be christened as ‘health stores’.
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