Venkatesh Iyer
BENGALURU, August 19: The Reliance Industries Ltd. has acquired Netmeds – Vitalic Health Pvt. Ltd. a company incorporated in year 2015. Netmeds is a licensed online pharmacy company offering genuine prescription and over the counter (OTC) medicine alongside, other healthcare products.
In an all-cash deal, RIL has acquired a majority stake for about Rs 620 crores. In a statement, the RIL said its investments represented about 60% holding and 100% direct ownership in its subsidiaries.
Netmeds launched in 2010 by Pradeep Dadha is a family-owned business that was started by his grandfather in the year 1914, in the pharmaceutical retailing trade. It later forayed into drug manufacturing sector as Tamil Nadu Dada Pharmaceuticals in 1972 which later amalgamated with Sun Pharma in 1996. Presently the group sells drugs as retail in Tamil Nadu and as wholesale in Kerala.
As per a report from India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), India’s domestic pharmaceutical market turnover reached Rs 1.4 lakh crore (US$ 20.03 billion) in 2019, up 9.8 per cent year on year from Rs 129,015 crore (US$ 18.12 billion) in 2018 and is predicted to touch around $100 billion by the year 2025.
As per a report on e-pharma delivering healthier outcomes by Ernst and Young (EY), online pharma companies are expected to succeed in sharing market size of $2.7 billion by 2023 from the present about $360 million within the next four years, consistent with a new EY report ‘e-pharma: delivering healthier outcomes.’
The report further adds E-pharma market size as of 2019 is $9.3 billion and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18.1% to succeed $18.1billion by 2023.
In India, there are more than eight lakh pharmacy shops around and are growing at the rate of 15% per annum. According to business sources, the Netmeds is one among the leading names within the pharmacy business and is looking to spread its wings throughout the country. “Netmeds is looking to expand by opening around 1000 pharmacy stores within the next five years,” the company sources said.
There has been considerable growth amid mergers and acquisition in online drug sales, or e-pharmacies, as online sellers like Medlife, PharmEasy, 1mg, Medplus all are growing at a faster pace.
The key growth drivers for the e-pharma market in line with the report is that the increase in internet penetration and smartphone ownership besides the comfort of ordering medications through an e-commerce platform, rise in chronic diseases, increasing per capita income and resultant healthcare spend.