WHO WE ARE

AC Health is the portfolio company of the Ayala group for its healthcare investments. It aims to address the unmet need for accessible, affordable, and quality healthcare for all Filipinos by building, investing, and connecting various businesses into an integrated and seamless ecosystem of services across the continuum of care. AC Health proactively invests across three pillars of healthcare: Pharma, Clinics and Hospitals, and Digital Health.

AC Health’s investments in pharma aim to establish a supply chain and drug retail network that deliver a wider range of quality, affordable medicine to more Filipinos. This includes Generika Drugstore, a pioneer in generic retail pharmacies established in 2003 which has grown into a chain of over 700 branches nationwide. Meanwhile, its importer and distributor arm, IE Medica and MedEthix, have become key industry players and have established their presence across various therapeutic areas.

AC Health offers patients an integrated care delivery network across primary, specialty, and multi-specialty platforms through its clinics and hospitals pillar. This includes the recently expanded Healthway network, now the country’s largest chain of retail clinics. Towards the end of 2020, AC Health also announced its partnership with Cancer Treatment Services International, a Varian company, for its specialty cancer hospital to be built in Taguig by 2023. AC Health also acquired a controlling stake of the QualiMed Health Network, expanding its network with four general hospitals, more than 85 outpatient clinics, and about 80 corporate clinics.

AC Health also continues to build and invest in health technology solutions through Vigos. Launched in 2018, Vigos’ portfolio of in-house solutions includes healthcare superapp HealthNow, a joint project with Globe’s 917Ventures that acts as a comprehensive digital platform for online consultations, medicine order and delivery, and diagnostics-booking.

MARKET OUTLOOK

While the healthcare industry will continue to be challenged in the short run, recovery will be slow and steady, hinged largely on the ability to regain patient confidence to continue looking after non-COVID healthcare issues. The disruption in healthcare has impacted industries differently.

Pharma showed strong growth in the beginning of the pandemic due to customer’s stockpiling behavior for daily essentials. However, this growth slowed towards the latter part of the year, and the pharma industry ended up contracting. Digital health also showed promising growth due to the increase in demand, favorable regulatory policies, and greater acceptance from both patients and providers. Clinics and hospitals, however, were challenged due to the manpower shortages and 60-70% decrease in patient foot traffic at the start of the pandemic. However, as quarantine restrictions loosened by the end of 2020, patient volume picked up and is expected to slowly recover in 2021.

These trends present potential areas of growth moving forward. These include: increased demand for preventive healthcare, acceleration of health technology initiatives, emergence of new outpatient models, and strengthened private-public partnerships.

Amidst all of this, AC Health, remains in a unique position to ride on these key trends with its expanded ecosystem of end-to-end services and platforms for all patients and customers.

CAPITALS

Financial
Strategic capital allocation from the parent company, Ayala, to support its expansion plan and 2025 vision

Intellectual

  1. Products and services 
  2. Brands
  3. Technology and analytics

Social and Relationship
Affiliation with Ayala brand, franchisees and strong relationships with business and external partners, which include key national government and regulatory agencies T3 (Test-Trace-Treat), local government units, healthcare professional organizations, and the academe

Manufactured
Network of 700+ Generika drugstores nationwide, and 100+ clinics under the Healthway brand (Healthway Family, Healthway Multispecialty, and Healthway Corporate Clinics)

Human
Pool of medical, non-medical, and health IT professionals, which includes employees from AC Health, 900+ employees from Generika, and 950+ employees from Healthway

Generika provides Filipinos with much needed medical supplies at affordable prices especially as health protocols are heightened throughout the country.

HOW WE CREATE VALUE


Asset Performance
AC Health aims to continue growing, expanding, and integrating its network of drugstores, clinics, and hospitals with Generika, Healthway and most recently, QualiMed.

It is also developing its own health technology solutions through Vigos. AC Health is also investing in the specialty care space, starting with oncology.

Portfolio Building and Business Development
AC Health’s vision is to build an integrated healthcare ecosystem of services across the entire continuum of care for all Filipinos.

Synergies
AC Health drives synergies within its portfolio and across the Ayala group, to improve efficiency and ensure integration.

The group will prioritize synergies in pharma supply chain, corporate health, clinical programs, data integration, and diagnostics.

BUSINESS REVIEW

AC Health continues to establish its presence as a key player in the Philippine healthcare industry, with its dynamic response against COVID-19 over the past year, and continued transformation in the pharma, clinics, and health technology spaces, alongside recent investments into hospitals and specialty care. It has also differentiated itself in the industry with its advocacy of improving healthcare for all through its ecosystem.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, AC Health’s priority was to remain responsive to local healthcare needs. By March, when COVID-19 was declared as a global pandemic and the first local case was diagnosed, AC Health served as a key knowledge resource for the country’s response against the health crisis, working closely with both the government and the private sector. More concretely, AC Health leveraged its own ecosystem of services by extending frontline care by maintaining operations at its drugstores, clinics, and online platforms. In the pharma space, AC Health’s priority was to ensure a continuous supply of medicine and personal protective equipment for its medical professionals and customers. Medicine pick-up and delivery services were also launched to improve accessibility. Operations also continued across the Healthway clinic network to help decongest overburdened hospitals, see non-COVID-19 patients, and triage suspected cases. In the digital health space, AC Health launched an integrated digital health platform connecting patients with various providers through HealthNow.

Nearly

500,000Patients triaged by
QualiMed Hospitals
and Healthway clinics

Nearly

150,000Tests conducted by the
RT-PCR Lab Network

Over

86,000app installs on
HealthNow

AC Health’s clinics and branches adhere to strict health and safety measures to ensure the well-being of clients, customers, and employees alike.

In addition to these, AC Health supported the government’s overall priority to ramp up testing and treatment capabilities for the country. The Ayala group, led by AC Health, worked in partnership with several of the Philippines’ biggest conglomerates to build BSL-2 laboratories in all four QualiMed hospitals. This consortium was formed as part of the Ayala Group’s initiative to augment the country’s testing capacity by 5,500 RT-PCR tests per day, in support of the DOH’s and the IATF’s Project T3. On treatment, AC Health also worked with QualiMed to expand and upgrade its Laguna and Bulacan facilities into COVID-19 referral hospitals. To date, the QualiMed network has triaged nearly 40,000 suspected COVID-19 cases and admitted over 500 confirmed cases. Moving towards vaccines in the latter part of the year, AC Health also supported the DOH and the IATF in the development of the country’s vaccine strategy and secured an initial batch of doses for the Ayala group through a tripartite agreement.

Overall, AC Health remains committed in executing in its vision of providing affordable, accessible, quality healthcare for all Filipinos, and will continue to work alongside partners from both public and private sectors, and the academe, who share in this vision.

Healthway has the Philippines’ largest network of clinics with over 100 cities across its various formats.

STRATEGY 2020 PERFORMANCE 2021 PRIORITIES
Establish leadership in the pharma space
Strengthen medicine supply chain and expand medicine portfolio
  • Secured supply of medicines, personal protective equipment and other essential supplies for healthcare professionals and customers
  • Continued operations to service needs of non-COVID-19 patients
  • Enhanced accessibility to products by offering medicine pick-up & delivery services, piloting an e-commerce platform, and partnering with Zalora Pharmacy and HealthNow
  • Work towards building a strong and integrated pharma supply chain
  • Enhance presence in the digital space as an additional platform to access medicines and supplies
Be the largest integrated care delivery network in the country across primary, specialty and multi-specialty platforms
AC Health’s care delivery network has expanded to include multiple formats and patient touch points Integrated its clinic network portfolio into one Healthway brand and making it the largest network of clinics in the country with over 100 clinics across primary, multi- specialty and corporate formats
  • Focus on network integration including patient referrals, and back-end operations
  • Continue “new normal” services like drive-by specimen collection and on-site vaccinations
Invest in health technology solutions that enable synergies across AC Health
  • Invest in healthcare technology solutions to improve efficiency, integration, and reach
  • Build portfolio of in-house health technology solutions
  • Invest in high potential health technology partners
 Launched healthcare superapp HealthNow, a comprehensive digital platform for on-demand and scheduled teleconsultations, online medicine ordering and delivery, and diagnostic-booking. This is in collaboration with 917Ventures, a wholly owned corporate incubator of Globe
  • Continue promoting HealthNow as an alternative access point for connecting healthcare providers with patients
  • Roll-out features such as diagnostic and in-clinic booking system for healthcare partners, as well as curated healthcare experiences for patients with specific conditions
Build the AC Health Portfolio
Build a healthcare ecosystem across the continuum of care
  • Announced partnership with Cancer Treatment Services International (CTSI), a Varian company, to develop and operate the first cancer specialty hospital in the country to be located in Taguig City
  • Announced acquisition of controlling stake of the QualiMed network with its 4 hospitals in Laguna, Bulacan, Iloilo and Batangas, as well as a range of clinics and an ambulatory surgical center
  • Continue to explore other opportunistic investments in pharma, hospitals and financing
  • Begin construction and lay the foundation for the organization of specialty cancer hospital
  • Implement transition plan and integration for QualiMed Health Network into AC Health ecosystem
  • Create value through pharma synergies, integrated clinical programs, digital integration, and centralized diagnostics
THE VALUE WE CREATE
Business Partners Through AC Health’s integrated and innovative network, partners can leverage shared resources and collectively make quality healthcare more accessible to more patients.
Healthcare Industry AC Health promotes a multi-sectoral and collaborative approach in addressing healthcare challenges so that the shared vision of improving everyone’s health will be more attainable. Through its subsidiaries and investee companies, AC Health also provides opportunities for a comprehensive range of healthcare professionals.
Customers and Patients
  • Generika Drugstore has been providing greater access to affordable, quality generic medicines, with up to 85 percent savings compared to branded counterparts.
  • IE Medica and MedEthix hold over 400 Certificates of Product Registration, supplying their customers medicines across 18 therapeutic areas.
  • The expanded Healthway network of clinics has served over 2.2 million patients for Healthway Multi-Specialty and 670,000 patients for Healthway Family Clinics as of end-2020. In 2021, the clinics also screened more than 160,000 suspected cases. Healthway Medical has also consistently been voted as the Most Trusted Brand for multi-specialty clinics.
  • Meanwhile, HealthNow has had 86,000 installations with 45,000 users and 340+ doctors in the platform, and 7,000 transactions as of end-December 2020.

3F Makati Stock Exchange Building
6767 Ayala Avenue Makati 1226 Philippines

+63 2 745 2508
www.achealth.com.ph
info@achealth.com.ph


Sustainability
recto.ky@achealth.com.ph

Learn about AC Health’s
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