Hi,
I work as a consultant but i have always had the keeda to be an Entrepreneur 🙂 . I am planning for a pharmacy startup and appreciate your inputs regarding the approvals required for this startup.
Although Initially the ideas was to start a Generic medicine store but based on the feedback i have received from current generic medicine store owners in Telangana region, it would be tough to survive as people are still not comfortable with generic medicine usage. So the idea is to start with regular pharmacy and create awareness in customers about generic medicines and provide them generic medicines as well.
How would it be different from existing pharmacies ?
1. Maintaining database of customer who use same set of medication on a regular basis and providing home delivery. Today in every households our parents/grand parents/sibings etc. are regular users of certain medication. The idea is to reach out to them and deliver their medication at their door step.
2. Keeping profit percentage to bare minimal. It is a known fact that the retail pharmacies charge a good percentage of profit and just by demanding some pharmacies give us 10% discount, so obviously their profit percentage is no less than 30-40.
3. Promoting Generic medicines.
Please let me know the roadblocks that you see with this startup and also suggest the process to get the required approvals.
asha chaudhry
hi mudassar – have you spoken to any pharmacist about this? or does anyone in your family have a pharmacy background?
when you say generic medicines, you mean OTC?
how do you plan to promote “generic medicines” – can you pls expand on this?
Varun Miglani
Are you having pharmacy degree? If no, you would need someone’s degree to get license to start this business.
Market is very big but lot of stereotype among pateints as they prefer medicines written by doc.
If possible align reputed docs on ur panel.
Sites like medguideindia etc share info about generics but not many ppl know abt it.
Why not try n reach “satyamev jayete team” , they did lot of research on this.
Mudassar Siddique
Thanks for the inputs Varun. I don’t hold a pharmacy degree but my friend does hold masters in pharma and my dad too works in a district govt. hospital as a paramedic. Yes satyamev jay ate is what inspired me to take this up. But based on my research it’s really difficult to sustain if you depend solely on generic medicines. Hence going for a pharmacy which also sells generic medicines to promote them. My dad closely works with doctors So bringer them in is a very good suggestion.
Thanks.
Mudassar Siddique
My father works as a paramedic in govt. hospital so my family has a background in medical field. Although not purely pharmaceutical.
As it’s difficult to sustain selling only generic medicines. I am planning to start with branded medicines like any pharmacy but at the same time create awareness among customers about generic drugs and selling them as well.
Generic drugs are copies of brand-name drugs that have exactly the same dosage, intended use, effects, side effects, route of administration, risks, safety, and strength as the original drug. In other words, their pharmacological effects are exactly the same as those of their brand-name counterparts. As these are unbranded they are available at very cheaper rate. You can watch satyamev jayate episode on generic drugs.
Yatin Mulay
Major roadblock i foresee : SCALE. How do you plan to scale offline? You can almost forget about promoting pharmacy generics online so that route to scale is not available in your niche.
Bottomline: Offline: difficult to scale Online: Impossible to scale ( due to policy restrictions )
Mudassar Siddique
Thanks for the inputs Yatin. Can you elaborate on policy restrictions? Are you suggesting that generic medicines can’t be sold online?
Yatin Mulay
You can sell whatever you wish online thro’ the organic traffic route. BUT online advertising campaigns for generic medicines are not allowed in any major ad platform (adwords/bingads/fb, etc)
Gaurav
I don’t see any roadblocks , rather i would call them challenges..
#Regarding your point 2 , i would suggest to do a little brief study about pricing model in pharma. And analyse your bare minimum running expense and then go fix the pricing.
#What area are you planning to cater and will you require a logistic partner to cater that? Again u need to add that in pricing model
#Also i would suggest clearly identify your USP and make sure you stick to it (be it pricing, time or timely reminders to the registered customers etc).If there are existing competition on similar business model, how would you differentiate them from yourself
#You need to do a little study on what marketing methods
Darshan Bhambiru
Check this out for more information!
Madhu Gupta teamed up with her husband Pankaj, and both of them started Mera Medicare.com – an e-commerce portal for generic medicines After deliberating and researching various aspects of running an e-commerce business in the pharmaceutical industry, Madhu and Pankaj finally started up in July 2014
At present, they have close to 5000 registered patients and more than 250 pharmacies in their network.
MeraMedicare, an e-commerce portal for generic medicines, aims to provide cheaper drugs
The company has its presence in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon and Bangalore, plan to be operational in six more cities in India, which are tentatively Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat, Chennai and Jaipur..
While e-commerce is on the rise, healthcare commerce still has a long way to go, and the market is ripe for more players. At present, we have companies like HealthKart, Medidart and Medist working on this front, too. But considering the population and the market, we still have a lot of opportunities in this sector.