Pharmacy chain to expand

Bangalore-based Lifetime Healthcare, plans to take its LifeKen chain of pharmacy retail outlets pan-south India.

Addressing a press conference here, M C Kini, CEO, promoter and director of the company, said, presently with 25 stores in operation across Bangalore, the company plans to establish 200 stores by end of financial year 2006-07 in three to four cities in south India and 700 stores over next 3 years.

He added that operations in Chennai recently commenced with three stores and it is expanding rapidly. An initial investment of Rs 40 crore has been set aside for the immediate expansion plans, he added.

The pharma retailing industry in India, which until the early 1990s was dominated by the unorganised sector, witnessed a rapid growth in the organised sector. Pharmacy retailing is one of the recent entrants in organised retail.

India has over 5 million retailers of which 15 per cent are chemists and out of these only 1,000 are organised or semi-organised.

"For instance, Bangalore has around 4,500 pharmacies and the share of organised pharma retail chains is just 100 outlets," said Pranabh Mody, Promoter and Chairman of Lifetime HealthCare.

LifeKen is positioned as a pharmacy that actively supports Wellness and Health for everyone.