Apollo Sugar, a JV between healthcare major Apollo Hospitals and global drug major Sanofi, plans to open 30 clinics in five new cities in the country during the current fiscal.
At present, Apollo Sugar has 44 clinics providing diabetes care in 17 cities.
"We plan to open 30 clinics in five new cities in the current fiscal," Apollo Sugar Clinics CEO Gagan Bhalla told PTI.
The cities that the company is looking at are Gwalior, Kanpur, Cuttack, Vijayawada and Coimbatore, he added.
"The focus now is to expand our presence in tier-II cities to provide quality diabetes care. Right now, we are present in metros and other big cities," Bhalla said.
When asked about the company's plans to fund the expansion, Bhalla said: "It will be done through internal accruals and the capital that is already available with Apollo Sugar."
The specialty diabetes chain is looking at setting up smaller clinics going forward.
"We plan to open more number of smaller clinics as with them we can reach more and more people expanding our reach. It is also capital efficient," Bhalla said.
Going forward, the government has to play a more proactive role preferably in the PPP mode to tackle diabetes in the country. As per the International Diabetes Federation, there were 69.1 million cases of diabetes in India in 2015 which are bound to grow, he added.
Apollo Sugar has clinics in 17 cities including Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Indore, Pune, Tiruchirappalli, Raipur, Mysore, Visakhapatnam and Madurai.
Apollo Sugar Clinics is a part of Apollo Health & Lifestyle Ltd, retail healthcare arm of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise.
