29 C
Mumbai
Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Here’s how Dawaa Dost is making medicines more affordable for the common man

- Advertisement -

In the next year, it aims to reach over Rs 200 crore GMV, serve over 400 million Indians, and achieve a base of 4 million active transacting users.

Purchasing the medications she needed was routine for Leela Diwakar, 42. Seeing this, a friend suggested she try Dawaa Dost over a year ago, and she has been a frequent client ever since.

Leela isn’t alone in this. According to Amit Choudhary, CEO of Dawaa Dost—a platform trying to bring medications to customers and minimise the expense burden of prescriptions—at the moment, around 500,000 Indians receive their drugs delivered using the app.

Amit has been running Dawaa Dost alongside his colleagues Yash Harlalka (COO) and Anirudh Batwara (CTO) since 2018. After nearly five years, it has touched around 19,000 pin codes and established 70 outlets in nine cities throughout Rajasthan, Karnataka, Telengana, Maharashtra, and Delhi.

It presently operates on an omnichannel approach, with clients able to access services both online and offline.

It has also received less than $4 million in investment from a number of prominent angel investors. Costs can become a hardship for those like Leela who have frequent medicines. One of Dawaa Dost’s promises is that it will reduce the cost of prescriptions by at least half. It is able to do so by purchasing drugs directly from reputable pharmaceutical firms such as Cipla, Zydus, Abbott, and Sun, resulting in up to 80% savings on each prescription.

Dawaa Dost also uses trade generics, which are variations of pharmaceuticals supplied by parent firms of a prescription drug that are not pushed by sales people.

Through a 4-tick procedure, Dawaa Dost advises the same medicine with a different brand to the prescription drug, as well as specifics about the alternatives accessible to its users. It is not uncommon for pharmacists to recommend alternatives to prescription medications. According to BRIEF India (Bureau of Research on Industry and Economic Fundamentals), 67% of individuals visiting pharmacies are provided an alternative brand.

The firm claims to have saved over 3.2 million customers Rs 400 million through its shops, kirana-tech model (association with over 2,500 kirana retailers throughout Rajasthan), and website.

Amit saw early on that Dawaa Dost’s competitive edge would come from establishing a balance between the benefits of the physical world and the suppleness of the digital world. Dawaa Dost has 1.5 million consumers compared to Pharmeasy’s 2.4 million yearly transactional users. Dawaa Dost may also personalise service and develop strong ties with consumers through its physical pharmacies, which can lead to customer loyalty and repeat business.

The company promises to achieve Rs 90 crore GMV in FY23, up 342% from FY22, with net sales of Rs 50 crore in FY23. It had a GMV of Rs 20 crore last year, with a net sale of Rs 12.2 crore.

In 2021, the firm released Medwiki, a video library managed by a team of pharmacists that intends to assist people better understand their medications. The site currently includes over 3.5 million videos in six languages and has been seen by 50 million Indians.

Its Karma Dost web programme reminds users when to take their medications. Karma Dost, which is available on Android and has 59,000 downloads, is used by 100,000 individuals across India and has been shown to enhance medication adherence by more than 60%, according to Amit. According to Leela, the app has been quite helpful in ensuring that her parents take their medications on time.

It has collaborated with 2,500 kirana stores throughout Rajasthan to sell pharmaceuticals through them and has built an aided selling platform to utilise its kirana connections and extend its last-mile deliveries.

Consumers can scan the QR code available at Dawaa Dost’s partner kirana stores, go to the Dawaa Dost website, and register, after which they can either upload the prescription on the website, order medicines and have them delivered to their doorstep, or get help from the command centre if they don’t have a prescription or even a photograph of the medicine.

If customers do not have a smartphone, the kirana store owner can assist them in placing an order using the Dawaa Dost business-to-business (B2B) app. Kirana stores are paid a fee for originating orders, whereas Dawaa Dost retailers fulfil them.

Dawaa Dost aspires to attain over Rs 200 crore GMV in the following year, serve over 400 million Indians, and have four million active transacting consumers. It is also testing a last-mile delivery service called Dawaa Dost Express (DD Express), which would assist direct-to-consumer (D2C) healthcare businesses in providing clients with speedy commerce deliveries. Next year, it intends to expand DD Express to include more than 50 collaborations.

For latest Bollywood Update Follow us on Instagram & Watch on Youtube

Newsdesk

Related Articles

Latest Articles