Generic Aadhaar founder Arjun Deshpande (R) and Ratan Tata believe mobile app will improve access to affordable medicines in remote parts of the country.
Hyderabad: Ratan Tata-funded pharmacy aggregator, Generic Aadhaar, which has just launched its mobile app, is keen to make generic medicines accessible to those in tier-3 cities and smaller towns in Telangana as well as other parts of India. Already 50,000 downloads had been witnessed within one week of the app from across the country.
At a time when single pharmacy retailers are facing fierce competition from large medical store chains as well as e-commerce platforms, the mobile application will help the standalone retailers not only survive but also enable them to provide efficacious generic medicines to people, bringing down the cost of medicines, particularly to sections such as senior citizens/pension holders, who do not have steady earnings.
The company ties up with pharmacy stores and supplies them generic drugs sourced from over 25 WHO-GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) certified generic drugs manufacturers from across India, making the medicines affordable. Today, the medicines, which are sold at Generic Aadhaar stores are up to 50-80 per cent lesser than the market price of the branded drugs.
Generic Aadhaar founder Arjun Deshpande told Telangana Today in an exclusive interview, “The Generic Aadhaar mobile app will help users to upload prescription and place orders and allow single retail stores across India to deliver medicines faster. Users who download the app from the Play Store can locate the nearest Generic Aadhaar store, search medicines and add to cart and get updates of their orders through notification, making the entire experience easy and seamless.”
Generic Aadhaar is not only going to serve large cities but also tier-3 cities and small towns. “Since we want to cater to people at the grassroots level, we will penetrate deeper into the country, through vernacular feature making the application available in over 30 languages in the next 4-5 months. The mobile app will also be available for people who are using 2G network, thus making it available for a wider population. We are already seeing downloads from Telangana both from Hyderabad and the districts,” added Deshpande.
Generic Aadhaar, introduced in February 2018, has already benefited 15-20 lakh senior citizens across India through its arrangement with the standalone pharmacy stores in the offline format.
He said, the company has partnered with stores in over 130 cities in India, adding 10-15 stores almost every day. By 2023, the company expects to have a partnership with 30,000 stores. With the launch of the mobile app, the company expects further penetration to meet underserved and unserved markets in the country.
“In Telangana, we have already allotted franchisees in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Sangareddy, Malkajgiri and Secunderabad. Licensing process is on and in the next six months, we will have about 400-500 stores. Pan-India, we are aiming for 10,000 stores by the end of 2021,” he informed.
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