Drugstoc Adham Yehia wants to stop the use of counterfeit drugs
Drugstoc’s Adham Yehia wants to stop the use of counterfeit drugs
Pharmatech startup Drugstoc offers a procurement platform for all medications, consumables, and small medical equipment, allowing hospitals and pharmacies to save time and money on their purchases. With the goal of bridging the supply chain gap in Nigeria's medical sector, Chibuzor Opara and Adham Yehia founded the startup in 2017.
In November, the company announced that it had raised $4.4 million in a Series A funding round to expand its operations in Nigeria. In addition to Africa HealthCare Master Fund (AAIC), which was a repeat investor, and the German Development Bank, the Series A financing round was led by Vested World, a new investor (DEG).
We spoke with Adham Yehia, who shared his vision for the future of the Nigerian healthcare industry.
How did Drugstoc come about? What’s your story?
Due to the fact that I was raised in a family of physicians, I was constantly surrounded by healthcare facilities. Having returned to Nigeria at the age of 19, having completed my bachelor's degree, I was able to take on an administrative position at the hospital, which was the start of my management career. Two issues stood out as being particularly important in terms of health-care provision. As a result of Nigeria's brain drain, the majority of health-care providers are experiencing a high rate of staff attrition. Because of the significantly higher salaries and opportunities for career advancement available in foreign countries, many doctors and physicians prefer to seek employment abroad. As a result, there is a severe shortage of medical talent in the country as a whole. The issue was brought to light as a result of running a hospital, but it is not a problem that can be solved solely by the private sector; rather, it is a systemic issue that requires intervention from the government and other stakeholders.
Second, I discovered while managing a hospital that providers had virtually no access to or confidence in the quality of the products they were purchasing. Following our determination that the existing status quo was unacceptable for our facilities (counterfeit products, limited availability, product expiration, and lack of access to products), we set about brainstorming solutions that would benefit not only ourselves but also all service providers in Nigeria. The risk of receiving substandard or counterfeit medications increases when a hospital purchases drugs on the open market. Additional risks include product instability, which means that the medication you have on hand today may not be available the following week, forcing you to change the medication you are giving to patients in the meantime. This was deemed intolerable by our group of people. However, when you have no control over the quality of the medication you prescribe, all of your efforts to ensure that your physicians and pharmacists are professional and that service delivery meets international standards become meaningless.
As part of our commitment to finding a solution to this problem, I went to Holland to earn a Master's degree. In the course of my stay, I insisted on writing my thesis on the Nigerian healthcare system, which prompted them to request that I find an associate professor to review my work because they lacked experience with Nigerian healthcare. I eventually found an associate professor who agreed to review my work. This led me to Chibuzo Opara, who was at the time pursuing a PhD at the University of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, he had already lost a family member as a result of the same issues that were affecting how facilities purchased medication. Speaking with colleagues who own pharmacies and hospitals, we realized that the solution was more critical than we had originally thought. When we started the company in 2017, we had the goal of making sure that all of the products available to health care providers were both affordable and of superior quality.
The challenges of launching a health-tech startup in Nigeria must be immense. What strategies have you used to stay relevant?
Challenges are a large part of what motivates us to get out of bed in the morning. We are committed to resolving the access and quality issues until our health worker colleagues have access to everything they require in order to provide the best possible care to their patient populations. We remain relevant to healthcare providers by providing them with access and convenience, while also maintaining an underlying commitment to high-quality service and products. With the help of technology, we hope to change the narrative surrounding Nigeria within our lifetime. It is our desire that medical supplies be made available to all licensed healthcare professionals.
Since our inception, we have worked hard to establish a reputation for integrity, trust, and quality, which has allowed our company to grow from supplying 20 facilities to over 3,000 facilities. It is through referrals from existing clients that we receive the vast majority of our new clients, which fuels our ambitions to broaden our reach to include all healthcare providers. We understand that being a provider in this part of the world is challenging enough on its own, and our job is to alleviate one of their headaches, which happens to be a significant one that we all share.
As a pharmacist, how do you keep track of medications and ensure that there are no compromises between manufacturers, hospitals, and pharmacies?
As a result of our acceptance into the Stanford University Seed program, we were able to redefine our perspectives on medicine, supply chain management, and finance. We currently work with over 400 manufacturers, with the number increasing on a daily basis. Track and trace technology allows us to track the movement of an item across the system at the level of an individual pack, which is extremely useful. We buy directly from accredited and vetted manufacturers, and we place a high value on product reliability and quality. Additional certifications include GDP certification, which confirms that our processing and storage facilities comply with international standards.
What additional goods or services does Drugstoc offer?
Providing convenient access to thousands of medications at transparent prices, as well as prompt delivery to any facility within the Drugstoc coverage area, is our primary service offering. Providers can place orders for items through a variety of channels, including mobile applications, web portals, direct phone calls, text messages, and USSD functionality (Unstructured Supplemental Service Data). You can count on us to assist you in growing your business and eliminating substandard and counterfeit products from your facility if you are a licensed health care provider. Besides being a delivery company, we also operate international-standard warehouses and fulfillment centers for storing drugs and supplying them to health-care professionals worldwide.
To better serve the needs of pharmacies and hospitals across the country, we intend to use the $4.4 million in funding we received from investors to expand our operations and increase capacity. We were previously restricted to the city of Lagos, but we intend to broaden our services in order to reach a larger audience in the future.
How did Drugstoc survive COVID when your work necessitates the use of a supply chain? Have you ever worked remotely?
We are on a mission to empower as many health-care providers as possible, despite the difficulties that may arise. Those who collaborate with us, such as hospitals and pharmacies, will suffer if we are forced to close as a result of COVID. We were able to accomplish this with the assistance of a fantastic team! The number of drugs we processed and delivered daily reached thousands even during the height of the pandemic. This was regarded as a legal obligation, and thus ceasing operations was not even considered an alternative.
This was accomplished through the use of stringent protocols, which included non-contact delivery and isolating fulfillment staff in order to prevent interactions with the outside world during the fulfillment process. In addition, we provided free health worker protection kits to a large number of facilities to assist them in protecting their employees from infection and shutting down their operations completely. We are a vital service in which we take great pride, and we will continue to be so.
Because many Nigerians do not have access to health-care services, health financing is an intriguing topic to discuss. Is it the intention of Drugstoc to provide such services, and how do you believe financial institutions can be of assistance to them?
Considering that insurance penetration has increased in Nigeria in recent years, we are optimistic that more Nigerians will no longer be required to pay for health-care services out of pocket. Additionally, telemedicine will make basic primary care more affordable for anyone who is in need of it. Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals can use Drugstoc to better serve their patients' requirements.
Which disruptive innovation are you most looking forward to?
What artificial intelligence and blockchain technology can accomplish in terms of rewriting Africa's narrative is something we are looking forward to seeing. When it comes to global supply chain issues, we believe that blockchain technology will make it possible to track and trace products more efficiently throughout the entire supply chain. Also possible will be the validation of transactions that cannot be changed or altered once they have been initiated.
