PHILAB Holdings Corp. is setting aside $150 million or roughly P7.5 billion this year to fund expansion plans in the Philippines.

At the sidelines of a news conference on Friday, Philab President and Chairman Hector Thomas Navasero said that of the total capital spending, $100 million would be used for the construction of satellite healthcare facilities across the country, to be dubbed as “PhilSats,” while the remaining $50 million would go to the generics business.

The company is set to open 1,000 PhilSats nationwide, of which 60 branches are set for construction within this year. Each branch is estimated to cost an average of $1 million.

“It’s our 60th anniversary this year so we’re going to launch 60 [branches]this year out of the thousand [planned]nationwide,” Navasero said.

“They’ll be modern, they’ll be equipped with the most modern new medicine technology and we could put them up to reduce the cost of healthcare across the country,” he added.

Each PhilSat center will serve as a primary care facility that will offer dialysis services and physical therapy, among others. It will feature advanced medical technologies as well as a pharmacy.

“We already have a design, it’s very clean. We want to make sure the mechanics are clean, it’s self-service, there’ll be a pharmacy, and maybe whatever generics there are too,” Navasero said.

“We’ll have roaming doctors and they [will]have a doctor there. But if there’s no doctor, that facility is connected via a satellite or via broadband because we will have devices there that a mother or nurse can handle the whole diagnosis.”

Philab intends to raise funds from several investors who are keen on investing in healthcare.

On Friday, the company announced it is investing $10 million or P500 million—convertible to equity—in US-based Veritas: The Genome Company to support the latter’s global expansion.

The two parties will construct a genome facility in Clark, Pampanga which will serve as the central hub for Veritas’ Asian operations.

As part of the collaboration, the parties will offer Veritas’ myGenome test kits, which help track drug sensitivities and also assess risks related to inherited diseases, drug sensitivities, traits, and ancestry using a customer’s DNA sample, usually from saliva.

MyGenome can be accessed from a person’s computer or smartphone. It can report clinically-relevant findings on over 1,200 conditions of the body and discuss suggestions such as changes to certain aspects of diet, among others.

“Our investment is small today. We hope we can increase our stake,” Navasero said, referring to their investment in Veritas.