DrugStoc Leading the E-Distribution Healthcare Industry by Raising $4.4Million Series A Funding

Healthcare sector is going through a policy contention by politicians in the western countries. It is also the highest policy hurdles for politicians to scale in Africa. The public/private partnership has been taking the lead in the healthcare sector. The healthcare sector had been trapped with ineffective and insufficient funding. The policy inconsistency and almost total neglect by politicians and policy makers has really hindered the growth of the healthcare sector in Africa.

The supply chain between hospitals and pharmaceutical stores has always been a setback in the healthcare delivery system. The distribution chain of drugs has been a major concern by healthcare practitioners.

DrugStoc’s emergence is about to change the distribution narrative of the pharmaceutical healthcare industry. DrugStoc was founded by Chibuzor Opara and Adham Yehia in 2015 as a start-up firm whose focus is on e-health procurement platform that prides itself in eradicating the supply chain problems in the healthcare sector. DrugStoc innovative strategy is bridging the gap in the drug’s distribution value chain in the healthcare sector with both public and private sector as the target market.

DrugStoc is targeting 100Million Nigerians with the hope of delivering quality drugs after raising $4.4Million Series A funding. DrugStoc’s vision of expanding into to 16 states to grow its customer base is a possibility considering the huge demand in Lagos and beyond. The procurement of quality pharmaceutical drugs within the industry is a challenge to all concern practitioners in the healthcare industry.

The entrepreneurial boldness of DrugStoc dates back to 2015 when Opara and Yehia founded the firm but before then the duo had founded Integra Health, the hospital management firm based on Yehia’s master’s degree project.

DrugStoc funding was led by Africa HealthCare Master Fund (AAIC). The other notable investors that took part are Chicago-based Venture firm Vested World, the German Development Bank (DEG) and some reputable investors that are concern about the healthcare distribution value chain.

According to AAIC’s director whose firm was part of the Series A funding, ” We are very excited to be part of the DrugStoc journey. The pharmaceutical market in Africa has enormous potential, and we are glad to back a company that is well positioned to be key player in the sector’s growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

The co-founder of DrugStoc Yehia also affirmed, ” In Nigeria we intend to expand beyond 14Million we currently serve to cover just around 100Million people. And this would be achieved by expanding to about 16 states. Once we are done with the heavy lifting of expansion, we will be training our sights on other countries.”

The two founders have garnered the right expertise over the years, Opara was about rounding up is PhD studies while Yehia was almost through with his master’s degree in health innovation management. The duo went ahead and formed an entrepreneurial partnership, Yehia recently affirmed that, ” It was an immediate bond. So when we first met, we actually ended up spending six hours together in my apartment, going over the problems in the Nigeria’s healthcare system.”

He also opined that, “It was then very early on that we both decided that we’re going to start a company. We didn’t know what it was, but we were going to focus on trying to streamline Nigeria’s healthcare system in our lifetime. We understood that the system itself was the problem.”

The turning point came after spending a year of incubation at Stanford’s Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. “I think we came out of Stanford with better understanding of business modelling and value chains than we understood it as a pilot phase.”

DrugStoc currently provide a platform for 400 manufacturers to link with 3,200 doctors, hospitals and pharmacies. Opara concludes that the start-up firm’s revenue has grown to over 1,500% in the past three years. The success enormity was achieved by the quality assurance put in place by DrugStoc, and a commission is earned by every transaction in the value chain by DrugStoc.

Opara recently said, ” When we started, I don’t think we ever had a doubt about the demand because we understood that people were fed up with the status quo.” He also reiterated that, ” It’s a fact that we are transforming not the convenience and access but also paying great attention to quality which every healthcare professional at the end of the day is bothered by, that is the underlying drive in a lot of healthcare facilities or pharmacies.”

The new funding hopes to make DrugStoc expansion rapid and increase it’s value added to the market and industry.