How 4 Indian startups are doing business in the medical delivery space

Photo credit: Treasure

The Indian pharmaceuticals market is expected to grow to US55 billion by 2020. But wait, are you sure the medicine you are buying is genuine?

That’s just one of the problems online medicine delivery startups are trying to solve.

Almost 25 percent of all drugs in the Indian market are said to be fake. Often people buy counterfeit or substandard products because they don’t know any better or because they are cheaper and more easily available.

The problem is so acute that these days doctors often caution patients about counterfeit drugs and suggest they buy them from branded outlets. But what if your neighborhood does not have a branded pharmacy?

Also, patients are often unable to find all the prescribed drugs at one shop, and have to go hopping from one drug store to another. A highly disorganized market also means the price can vary from place to place.

It is these drawbacks – besides, of course, the sheer convenience of online buying – that have resulted in a wide range of medicine delivery startups coming up in India. Netmeds, BookMeds, Pluss, 1mg, mChemist, Pharmeasy, MyMedisyn, CareonGo, Dawailelo, and Mera Medicare are a few names in the space.

Here we shed light on how four startups are trying to plug the offline and online loopholes in the medical delivery space.

BookMEDS

Photo credit: Japanexperterna.se

This Hyderabad-based online pharmacy marketplace started out in 2014. BookMEDS boasts of 15,000 customers and promises to deliver medicines free of cost and within four hours.

Users can search for stores according to product categories like orthopedic, home care, and mother and baby care. BookMeds has a well-designed, easy-to-follow website.

At present, it works with 351 pharmacies across 520 postal codes. The medicines are dispensed only by the pharmacies that use their system.

The BookMEDS founding team consists of Mohammed Abubakr, Subathra Santhanam, and Sajid Sikander. “During the start of the year [2015], contrary to popular advice, we made the brave decision to scale up in Hyderabad rather than scaling out across India. The idea was to prove that the model works and is profitable,” says Abubakr.

Pluss

CareOnGo

Dawailelo