Rajiv Gulati rolls out a startup called mChemist

Pharma industry veteran Rajiv Gulati, who quit last year as president Ranbaxy, is floating a start-up which offers a 'mail order service' for chronic medicines, particularly for patients suffering from hypertension and diabetes. mChemist offers home delivery of essential medicines and over-the-counter drugs, booked either online, or through a soon to be launched mobile app. 

Investments in health and life sciences sector are witnessing a huge traction in the wake of the immense potential in the sector, with other start-ups including Healthkart Plus (1 mg) and Netmeds, also operating in the pharma space. 

The start-up which has been self-funded at the moment, is not averse to fund-raising, Gulati said, adding "Senior citizens and other consumers can now order medicines online, or by uploading a prescription on the mobile app, instead of hopping from one store to another in search of prescribed medicine, to overcome issues of non-availability, lack of authenticity, and high prices. mChemist.com will enable patients to take care of their long-term medicine requirements, and improve compliance by sending out reminders of medicine re-fills". 

Besides Gulati, the venture is supported by industry veterans including Rajiv Ranjan, former corporate advisor Apollo Hospitals and ex-director of US-based CVS-Caremark, GurvinderPal Singh Baxi, pharma supply chain entrepreneur and Navinder Singh Sethi, former associate director Eli Lilly. 

The online pharmacy has trained registered pharmacists who dispense the medicine, and offers a 15% discount on each order. Further, in semi-urban areas there is menace of substandard medicines, with also their quality (dosage and purity) getting affected due to lack of electricity, refrigeration and poor storage conditions. Ethical on-line pharmacies like mChemist address this concern, as medicines are sourced with complete records, and with track and trace capability, he added. 

In addition to supplying both prescription medicines and non-prescription healthcare products, mChemist.com provides services like dosage reminders, refill reminders and free diet counselling to patients. 

The four partners are also promoting a unique venture of ayurveda migraine clinics under mChemist, which are using the ATP (Ayurvedic Treatment protocol) for migraine. The ATP has been designed by Vaidya Balendu Prakash, Padma Shri and physician to late president, KR Narayanan, while the clinics are being run by staff trained by vaidya. 

mChemist has already kicked off operations by supplying prescription drugs in Delhi, and non-prescription and over-the-counter products to Mumbai and Kolkata.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Ex-Ranbaxy-top-executive-rolls-out-drug-delivery-startup/articleshow/47918107.cms