Remedial Health Raises $1 Million Pre-seed Funding To Digitise Neighborhood Pharmacies

The health-tech startup, Remedial Health, has raised $1million dollars in pre-seed funding to digitise Africa’s neighborhood pharmacies and Proprietary Patent Medicine Vendors(PPMVs).

The company said in a statement on Monday that the funding would make it easier for neighbourhood pharmacies and PPMVs to access affordable and authentic retail medicines.

According to Remedial Health, the pre-seed funding round was led by Global Ventures and Ventures Platform, with participation from Ingressive Capital, Voltron Capital, and Angel investment from Flutterwave, among others.

It said that asides from raising pre-seed funding, it has joined the Winter 2022 cohort of Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator accelerator.

It said that participation in the Y Combinator accelerator would provide access to support a network of partners and advisors to drive growth for the startup.

Remedial Health said it would be delivering technology solutions that enable greater efficiency and profitability in Africa’s pharmaceutical sector by supporting the development of a tech-enabled, pharmacy-centered healthcare network across the continent.

“We already have operations in six states across Nigeria and we are connected to more than 100 pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers, including GSK, Pfizer and Astrazeneca, as well as Nigeria’s Orange Drugs, Emzor and Fidson Healthcare,"

“The new funds will support the expansion into more states in Nigeria to empower more pharmacies and PPMVs as the frontline of healthcare in more states across Nigeria, “it said.

According to the statement, PPMVs are businesses without trained pharmacists that sell pharmaceutical products on a retail basis for profit.

It noted that they provide the main source of medicines for many common illnesses and account for more than 80 percent of all the drugs sold in Africa’s $45 billion pharmaceutical industry (projected to reach $70 billion by 2030).

Remedial Health, however, said that a fragmented market and an opaque supply chain means manufacturers have limited visibility into their performance, leading to inefficient decision-making on forecasting, production and distribution.

It said that using Remedial Health’s digital procurement platform, pharmacies and PPMVs could source all the medicines, consumables and small medical devices for their practice via a mobile responsive web store at open-air medicine market prices and have them delivered within 24 hours.

Samuel Okwuada, Co-founder of Remedial Health, said: “Pharmacies and PPMVs have been the frontline of healthcare in Nigeria for many years and we are excited to have raised these funds to connect them more effectively to manufacturers.

"We will also ensure that their data is reflected more accurately in decision making across the pharmaceutical value chain,"

“The ongoing global pandemic has brought the importance of healthcare to the fore and we strongly believe that these businesses can play a key role in safeguarding lives and livelihoods across the continent for years to come.”

Sacha Haider, Principal at Global Ventures, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Remedial Health to address some of the challenges impacting access to healthcare on the continent.”

He noted that there was huge scope for growth for Remedial Health not only in Nigeria’s pharmaceutical industry but also across the African continent.

"We are looking forward to supporting Remedial Health on their mission to build a tech-enabled, pharmacy-centered healthcare network across Africa, ” Haider said.