Explore Business Standard
Online Pharmacy
Apollo Pharmacy plans to open two new stores every day, targeting to grow its customer base to 10 crore within the next five years, its CEO P Jayakumar said on Friday. The omni-channel pharmacy network, which has crossed the 7,000-store mark with the opening of its latest store in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, aims to strengthen the neighbourhood pharmacy reach. "We will continue to expand by opening two new stores every day and grow our customer base to 100 million within the next five years, ensuring that the highest-quality medicines remain within everyone's reach," Jayakumar said in a statement. Apollo HealthCo operates Apollo Pharmacy that serves users across over 19,000 pin codes. Apollo HealthCo Executive Chairperson Shobana Kamineni said at present, Apollo Pharmacy serves over one million orders every day. "The 7,000-store milestone reflects the scale Apollo has built and the trust families place in us. We will continue to deepen access, strengthen India's neighbourhood pharmacy
SastaSundar Ventures Ltd is in the process of investing Rs 150 crore over the next two years to strengthen its digital healthcare platform and warehousing infrastructure to make a turnaround and return to profit in FY'26, a company official said on Thursday. The investment will largely be funded through a Rs 145-crore capital pool, created from the Flipkart Health exit settlement and internal treasury income. The Kolkata-based online pharmacy ended its partnership with Flipkart Health earlier this year and relaunched its B2C platform under its own brand. "We are aiming to return to net profit in the current fiscal through strategic initiatives. We are focusing on the execution of these and capital-efficient growth to recover the company from a Rs 122 crore net loss in FY'25. "Out of the Rs 150 crore, about Rs 40 crore was deployed in FY'25, and the remaining Rs 110 crore will be invested in FY'26 and FY'27," SastaSundar Chairman B L Mittal told PTI. To tap into the rising demand f
Nearly all of the world's 35,000 online pharmacies are being run illegally and consumers who use them risk getting ineffective or dangerous drugs, according to the US Trade Representative's annual report on notorious markets. The report also singled out 19 countries over concerns about counterfeit or pirated products. The report also named about three dozen online retailers, many of them in China or elsewhere in Asia that it said are allegedly engaged in selling counterfeit products or other illegal activities. The report says 96 per cent of online pharmacies were found to be violating the law, many operating without a license and selling medicines without prescriptions and safety warnings. Their websites often look like legitimate e-commerce platforms, often with false claims that they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, said the report, released Wednesday. The FDA and US Drug Enforcement Administration have both issued warnings about risks of buying prescription ..