mPharma, a Ghanaian well being tech startup that manages prescription drug stock for pharmacies and their suppliers, immediately introduced its growth to Ethiopia.
The corporate was based by Daniel Shoukimas, Gregory Rockson and James Finucane in 2013. It makes a speciality of vendor-managed stock, retail pharmacy operations and market intelligence serving hospitals, pharmacies and sufferers.
In Africa, the pharmaceutical market worth $50 billion faces challenges resembling sprawling provide chains, low order volumes, and exorbitant costs. Many Africans nonetheless undergo preventable or simply handled ailments as a result of they can’t afford to purchase their drugs.
With a presence in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda and Zambia, in addition to two unnamed international locations, mPharma needs to extend entry to those drugs at a decreased price whereas assuring and preserving high quality. The corporate claims to serve over 100,000 sufferers month-to-month and has distributed over 1,000,000 medicine to Africans from 300 associate pharmacies throughout the continent.
CEO Rockson says that when mPharma began eight years in the past, he needed to personal a pan-African model with operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria from the get-go.
By 2018, mPharma went stay within the West African nation. In 2019, the well being tech acquired Haltons, the second-largest pharmacy chain in Kenya, subsequently coming into the market and gaining 85% possession within the firm. Nonetheless, it appeared like a stretch to the Ghanaian-based firm to broaden to the East African nation because it met a number of pushbacks. Rockson attributes this to the cruel nature of doing enterprise with overseas corporations.
“Ethiopia is among the most closed economies on the continent. This has made it a bit onerous for different startups to launch there simply as a result of the federal government hardly ever permits overseas investments within the retail sector.”
In accordance with Rockson, most overseas manufacturers function within the nation by way of franchising, a way mPharma has employed for its growth into Africa’s second most populous nation.
The corporate signed a franchise settlement with Belayab Prescription drugs by way of its subsidiary, Haltons Restricted. Belayab Prescription drugs is part of the Belayab Group — a conglomerate that can be an official franchisee of corporations like Pizza Hut and Kia Motors in Ethiopia.
Rockson says we should always count on the partnership to open two pharmacies in Addis Ababa this yr. Every pharmacy will supply the corporate’s client loyalty membership program known as Mutti, the place they’ll get reductions and financing choices to entry medicine.
This franchising is part of mPharma’s development plans of enabling corporations trying to enter the pharmacy retail sector. The plan is to offer entry to a “pharmacy-in-a-box” answer the place mPharma handles each infrastructure concerned, and the pharmacy is simply involved concerning the client.
“What we’ve carried out is that we allow these pharmacies with our software program, and we have now the backend bodily infrastructure and warehousing,” he mentioned. ‘They will depend on mPharma to do all of the background work from getting the merchandise into your pharmacy and in addition offering the software program infrastructure to have the ability to run supply providers whereas they deal with medical care.”
mPharma is among the well-funded healthtech startups in Africa and has raised over $50 million. Final yr when it secured a Series C round of $17 million, Helena Foulkes, former president of CVS, the biggest pharmacy retail chain within the U.S., was appointed to its board. She joined Daniel Vasella, ex-CEO and Chairman of Novartis as members who’ve many years of expertise within the pharmaceutical business.
This kind of backing, each in experience and funding, has confirmed important to how mPharma runs operations. Rockson doesn’t mince phrases when saying the corporate needs to dominate African healthcare with Ethiopia, its hardest market to enter, already secured.
“There are problems with fragmentation in pharmacy retailing, poor requirements and excessive costs that haven’t been mounted. The African alternative remains to be big, and we’re nonetheless initially levels of privatisation of healthcare on the continent,” he mentioned.
