In the past two decades, technology has taken every business sector to newer heights. It has impacted the lives of millions of people and many industries have embraced its potential in automating their business processes. Similarly, the healthcare sector has also adopted progressive technology models to redefine the way it functions and improve outcomes. With this, telemedicine has become one of the biggest transformations in the industry which has connected small towns to doctors located in urban cities.

Majorly, the rapid technological adoption in the industry is the result of the pandemic-induced lockdown. This also created the space for pharmacies to undergodigital transformation and position themselvesas an attractive model in the healthcare industry.The country faced a large-scale disruption in e-commerce services with people ordering groceries online during the pandemic. It necessitated people to adopt social distancing and order medicine without stepping out. As a result,retail pharmacies became the forerunner to fight against coronavirus infection.

Local pharmacies providing last-mile access
India has a diverse population scattered from rural to urban areas. Considering the traditional retail pharmacy model, a person living in a small town or rural area has to travel to the nearby town or city to get appropriate medicines. On the other hand, the pandemic-induced lockdown made the country realize the need for local medical stores reaches the last mile. In fact, the government also classified the pharma business as an essential service and provided relaxation during the lockdown to deliver the medicine to the consumers’ doorstep. As a result, retail pharmacies demonstrated their critical role in not only fighting the infection but also alleviating the challenges in ensuring efficient, affordable and trusted healthcare.

Presently, close to 100 crore Indians today are living in tier-2 & tier-3 cities. In such areas, the local pharmacy becomes the go-to place for all healthcare services. Furthermore, statistics show that for every 1700 people, there is one pharmacy available. Since many doctors are not able to reach people living in tier-2 & tier-3 cities, local pharmacies can become huge healthcare support by going online and providing quick, trusted, & efficient healthcare solutions. In addition, setting up online doctor consultations for their customers, delivering medicines in minimum time and also creating Digital Health IDs for their customers can ultimately contribute to Aayushman Bharat Digital Mission.

As per the estimates – the retail pharmaceutical market was valued at 25 billion USD in 2017 and projected to reach 59 billion USD by 2013. This clearly indicates there is ample space for retail pharmacies to expand their reach by tying up with customers and deliver the medicines at their doorstep.

Digitally driven retail pharmacies to improve community health

A digitally driven retail pharmacy has the ability to show remarkable benefits in many large economies. With widespread technology adoption, India is no more behind the race of connecting rural and urban pharma.The intervention of intermediaries, health-tech firms and government has triggered the transformation of retail pharmacies in all terms in the country. Further, it helped retail pharmacies in overcoming traditional retail challenges such as selling substandard medicines, stockouts, efficient and affordable delivery of medicines toensure holistic improvement in community health.

In 2017, WHO also founded that 10.5 percent of medicines sold in low- or middle-income countries including India are substandard. Other recent surveys in India state that about 3 percent of the total drugs sold are substandard, while 0.28 percent were found to be fake. This indicates that the country has the problem of substandard drugs than fake ones. Since the adoption of e-commerce or at-home delivery models, traditional retail pharmacies have shifted their focus towards safer drug supply by sourcing directly from the manufacturers or licensed vendors. This in turn helps pharmacies gain customers’ trust and save huge costs with an efficient supply chain.

The medical needs of the rural or small-townpopulation are usually underserved. They have limited access to pharmacies and authorized pharma sellers. With the expansion of logistics networks due to the boom in the E-commerce industry and digitization in the past decade, it has opened several avenues for retail pharmacies to address the unmet needs of people belonging to Tier 2 and 3 cities.

Digitally driven pharmacies are indispensably combating the challenges of traditional retail pharma with affordable and easy availability of medicines. Normally, an offline pharmacy stocks upto 6,000 to 8000 SKUs. However, if an offline pharmacy gets itself registered online, it can compete with e-pharmacies and can feature upto 50,000 SKUs as per the public demand while not limiting to demographic reach. Further, the integration of new-age technologies has automated the process of inventory management that results in avoiding stockouts in retail medical stores. This also gives an impetus to promote community health with national inclusion.

What’s next?

Nowadays, traditional retail pharmacies have geared up with features that align with national development objectives to promote community health. By leveraging the internet, ordering genuine medicines from a trusted pharma store has become easier for the general public. Besides this, the reach of digitally-driven retail pharmacies fulfils the unmet pharma needs of the population scattered in Tier 2 and 3 cities, further resulting in a holistic healthcare development of the nation.

By Shreyans Mehta, Co-Founder, SehatSathi

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