CVS/Caremark, the country’s largest drugstore chain in overall sales, announced Wednesday that it planned to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products by October.

The company’s move was another sign of its metamorphosis into becoming more of a health care provider than a largely retail business, with its stores offering more miniclinics and health advice to aid customers visiting its pharmacies.

The company estimated that its decision would cost an estimated $2 billion in sales from tobacco buyers, which includes incidental items like gum that those customers might also purchase. That is a mere dent in its overall sales of $123 billion in 2012, the latest figures available.

“We have about 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners helping patients manage chronic problems like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and heart disease, all of which are linked to smoking,” said Larry Merlo, chief executive of CVS. “We came to the decision that cigarettes and providing health care just don’t go together in the same setting.”

CVS does not sell electronic cigarettes, the highly popular but debated devices that deliver nicotine without tobacco and emit a rapidly vanishing vapor instead of smoke. It said it was waiting for guidance on the devices from the Food and Drug Administration, which has expressed interest in regulating e-cigarettes.

Some major retail stores like Wal-Mart and convenience stores still sell cigarettes and other tobacco products, although anti-smoking groups and health care professionals will probably use CVS’ decision to try to pressure others to consider doing so. Municipalities have also begun enacting legislation governing where cigarettes can be sold.

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that the CVS decision was “an unprecedented step in the retail industry” and predicted it would have “considerable impact.”

Sebelius said that each day, some 3,200 children under 18 will try a cigarette and 700 will go on to become daily smokers.

“(Wednesday’s) CVS/Caremark announcement helps bring our country closer to achieving a tobacco-free generation,” she said.

Otis Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, said other local government entities were weighing similar measures.

“If you’re in the business of promoting health and providing health care, it’s very hypocritical to be selling tobacco products,” Brawley said. “It just doesn’t make sense and in fact is almost a conflict of interest.”

The company estimated that the decision would erase 17 cents in earnings per share of stock annually, but that it had identified ways of offsetting the impact.