The Silicon Review ^Asia

Medlife, the health-tech platform is looking forward to its expansion into the retail pharmacy segment in India. It hopes to do that by establishing around 750 pharmacies across the nation shortly by the end of 2020 as revealed by a top company official. Medlife is leading the way in the online pharmacy market and is majorly targeting on making acquisitions to attain its goals. “We have started the omnichannel where we are now looking at active acquisitions of offline retail chains”, said Tushar Kumar, CEO and Founder of Medlife. He also mentioned that the stores will offer the advantages of offline pharmacies as well as act as hyper local centres for last mile delivery of medicines.

In order to carry out the acquisitions, Medlife has earmarked around Rs 250 crore, which will be raised through internal accruals and commitment from the Alkem Family Trust. In addition to targeting pharmacy chains in the country, the firm is also looking at operating hospital OPD pharmacies. Medilfe will also take care of the pharmacies in Fortis Hospitals as part of the endeavor going forward.

Medlife has its presence in around 21 cities with 50 licensed pharmacies that help the company dispense the medicine ordered by its customers online. Currently, the company operates in 21 cities and with the growth of fulfillment centres, it wants to expand its presence to 50 cities. Tushar said that Medlife will add 60 more fulfillment centres in the coming fiscal year, and it will consider expanding into tier II cities such as Indore, Chandigarh, Mangalore, Durgapur, Howrah, Surat, Nagpur and Kanpur among others.