US startup launches e-pharmacy platform in Myanmar

Photo credit: Common Health

In Myanmar, 70% of the population live in rural areas that lack proper access to healthcare. The country, however, has a surprisingly high smartphone penetration of nearly 134%.

Common Health, a US-incorporated startup, saw an opportunity to bridge this gap. It has launched a platform in the country to connect patients with service providers through its website, a traditional hotline, and chatbots on Facebook.

Founded in 2019 by Matthew Guilford, Common Health aims to make quality medicine more accessible and affordable for patients with chronic diseases, which the company says has affected 151 million people in ASEAN.

By partnering with pharmacies, distributors, and manufacturers, the startup says it can offer medicine at better prices. It provides free deliveries with its own transportation teams in Yangon and Bago. In addition, patients can have access to free telemedicine support, with a family medicine doctor matched to each household.

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Guilford bootstrapped the company and plans to fundraise in the future. In April 2020, Common Health was awarded a contract with UNICEF to design and deploy healthcare offerings for families with children in Myanmar. Since then, it has reinvested its margin from the UNICEF contract to build this new platform.

“Our business model will be to recover our costs through service fees,” the company told Tech in Asia. “In choosing to focus on chronic diseases, we selected a customer segment that we believe will reward us over the long term if we invest in building and delivering quality services.”