The retail arm of Ranbaxy Laboratories and Fortis Healthcare family, Fortis Healthworld will roll out 1000 health stores in 400 cities across the country in the next five years with a total investment of Rs 800 crore.

Announcing the entry of the group into the retail sector, Ranbaxy chief Malvinder Mohan Singh and Fortis CEO Shivinder Mohan Singh today unveiled the log of the new venture from the family.

The `one stop shop' chain will offer prescription and OTC drugs, health supplements, health foods, alternate medicines like ayurveda and homeopathy, home and personal care products, telemedicines and pathology collection centres under one roof.

To be operated round the clock, it would extend value added services like free home delivery, prescription reminder service, loyalty programmes and OPD appointments, company CEO Ashish Kirpal Pandit said.

"The stores will cater to the entire health needs of a family. We will roll out 250 stores, to be operated by the company, by the end of next year,'' Shivinder Singh said.

"The new venture, floated from the Fortis group, will be another arm of the family and will not be a subsidiary of existing companies. We will finance it from the Singh family and personal funds,'' Malvinder clarified.

At a later stage, company would open stores on franchisee basis in the interior places. The operations of the stores would be backed by state-of-the-art IT infrastructure, warehouses in every State, bar-coding and specially trained employees, they informed.