founded in 2010 and is headquartered at Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Netmeds.com get everything you need to take care of your health. From high-quality, affordable Prescription medicines, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals to general health care products like Ayurveda and Homeopathy medicines. Right at the comfort of your home buy medicines online at Netmeds.com to get them delivered straight to your door anywhere across India. No more hassles of driving to the Medicine store, waiting in line, or even remembering your refills!

Netmeds - Founder

The company was founded by Pradeep Dadha. Pradeep was born and raised in the Chennai suburb of Royapettah. He worked at his family business Dhadha & Company and set up its internet retail pharmacy. Prior to starting Netmeds, he ran the Pradeep Dadha Group of Companies, a private holding company, and was the chairman of its subsidiary, Notch Media

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Netmeds - The Idea

Pradeep's family ran TamilNadu Dadha Pharmaceuticals Ltd, which was acquired and merged with drug maker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in 1997. Pradeep Dadha’s father, S. Mohanchand Dadha, who founded the family business, is on the board of Sun Pharma.

Netmeds major focus is on chronic illness patients, both patients themselves and their caregivers. Diabetes, hypertension, cardio diseases, hyperlipidemia are some of the conditions that require regular and long-term therapy. Therefore, patients who take the same medications every month find Netmeds helpful and convenient.

Netmeds - Major Challenges Faced

Buying medicines online was a totally new paradigm shift and they had to convince and educate consumers to adapt it on how to best utilize it for their ultimate convenience and benefit.

The prescription requirement to many customers, in its own, is a new concept. But by requiring a prescription, Netmeds is encouraging many people to see a doctor, often for the first time in a long time.

And ofcourse, for any e-commerce company, dealing with the logistics of a country so vast is always a challenge. The typical chronic patient may be taking as many as 6 medicines a month, sometimes more. Therefore, they have to be able to quickly source and deliver any number of prescription medicines and over the counter products in one basket.

Netmeds - Product and Services

Netmeds offers an impressive selection of both prescription drugs and non-prescription products (OTC).

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Ordering medicines online at Netmeds.com is as simple as browsing, adding to your cart and uploading your prescription, if required, and proceeding to checkout.

Netmeds diagnostics provides customers with of expert advice from medical professionals delivered to them using technology with the aim of improving healthcare outcomes.

Apart from branded drugs, the portal also offers generic alternatives for every medicine ordered on the website. In addition to the prescription drug catalogue, Netmeds offers a complement of eight categories of OTC remedies for pain, the category for diabetic support like monitors and test strips, personal care section and others.

Products are sourced from more than 185 Indian manufacturers, including a home page menu of the top 25, such as Sun, Ranbaxy, Cipla, and Dr. Reddy among the other pharmaceutical companies.

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Value-added services are another USP of Netmeds. These services include automated refill reminders, loyalty programmes, expense analytics, digital copy of prescriptions, etc. Data analytics allows the company to predict demand with accuracy. Thus it enables them better their inventory management and making sure stocks are available to fight challenges such as changing seasons and epidemics through early warning indicators.

Netmeds - Growth

Netmeds provides prescription medicine and healthcare products to more than 3,000,000 patients across India, serving over 19,000+ pin codes. The company has seen double-digit growth rates month-on-month since inception. They supply over 25,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) across India. Netmeds claims to have eight fulfilment centres in Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Raipur and Kochi. They plan to expand their presence by setting up warehouses through tie-ups in 16 metro and non-metro cities by the end of 2019. Currently, the focus is on increasingly making medicines easily accessible and affordable to customers. The company will be building infrastructure for this purpose.

Netmeds - Business Model

Netmeds is considering a B2B business model through which it will offer pharmacies, medicines at the wholesale rate for selling to their customers. At present, Netmeds offers discounts up to 20% on prescribed medicines to its customers. Dadha said they are evaluating how to get pharmacy stores to buy from the company. “It would work like a B2B business, we will be doing wholesale business with them,” he added. When queried about Netmeds’ growth plans, Dadha said that

Netmeds- Revenue Model

“Our revenue model caters to the chronic segment, which represents patients across India and totals about $10 billion a year. Thus, we provide medicines to those patients who take the same medication regularly with a dependable online resource. It helps them accessing their medication and having them delivered to their home without any hassle on time. We also offer a wide range of OTC (over the counter) and FMCG products. So like the typical US Walgreens, CVS or Boots, a customers will come for the prescription drugs, available at great prices, while they fill the basket with other needed items,” Pradeep Dadha elucidated.

Netmeds - Awards and Recognition

Netmeds bagged the Health Tech Start-Up of the Year at the NDTV Unicorn Start-up Awards 2016. They have also been selected as ‘Asia’s Most Promising Brand 2018’ by Int+ WCRC International.

Netmeds- Acquisition and Mergers

In November 2016, Netmeds acquired Delhi-based hyperlocal drugs delivery app Pluss.

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Netmeds.com also acquired JustDoc.com, a telemedicine portal in a cash and stock transaction.

Netmeds- Funding

Netmeds’ first investor was OrbiMed which pumped $50 million into the start-up in 2015. They further raised $14 million in October 2017 from Tanncam along with participation from Sistema Asia Fund. Tanncam is a Cambodian investment company.

The company recently raised $35 million (Rs 247 crore at current exchange rates) in a Series C funding round from Southeast Asian business conglomerate Daun Penh Cambodia Group based in Singapore.

Netmeds will use the funds to expand its reach through marketing efforts and enhance the customer experience by expediting delivery and increasing its stock.

Netmeds - Marketing Campaign

The company has signed MS Dhoni as their brand ambassador. The TV channels where MS Dhoni appeared has more than 34 million views as of now.

Netmeds - Competitors

NetMeds competes with another well-funded player in the space, 1mg, PharmEasy, mChemist, Myra and BigChemist are some of the other players in this category.

Netmeds- Future Plans

The future plans include partnerships with other pharma/nutritional companies to use data analytics. It will enable them to target specific patient groups.