1mg raises funding from HBM Healthcare Investments

Online pharmacy marketplace 1mg (formerly known as HealthKartPlus) has raised an undisclosed amount of additional funding (to its Series B funding) from HBM Healthcare Investments, the company announced in a press statement.

The company plans to use the funding for geographic expansion, investing in its technology and analytics platform, building more teams and hiring senior leadership in the next few months, 1mg’s co-founder Prashant Tandon told MediaNama over a phone conversation. On being asked the advantage the HBM funding brought it, Tandon said that HBM could potentially connect it with healthcare companies anywhere in India or abroad.

In terms of geographic expansion, 1mg plans to take its presence in the current 12 cities to 30 by the end of the financial year, mostly concentrating on metros and state capitals. Tandon said that currently, the company expects to grow at 20-25% month on month, and will be 5-6 times its current size by the end of next year. As of now, 1mg claims to have 75 million visits to its platform yearly and 5.5 million app downloads.
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Previous funding: Last month, the company raised $15 million from Maverick Capital Ventures and existing investors Sequoia Capital and Omidyar Network to expand its online pharmacy and diagnostics, and launch digital health products like smart prescriptions and personalised health feeds. At the time, the company stated that its revenue grew 8x in the last 12 months. In April 2015, HealthKartPlus raised funding worth $6 million and rebranded itself to 1mg.

On being asked about the non-availability of some drugs and their cheaper counterparts, Tandon admitted that although the company did face occasional out of stock moments, its tie up with some of the largest distributors in the city gave it 95% coverage of medicines and products, both regular and the cheaper ones.

About returns, Tandon said that when a user wants to return a product, it has to be the same batch number as that of what was dispensed to them. “Typically, returns in the pharmacy sector are low. Users return products only if the medicine they got was not the one they wanted. In case of returns, we have to get the same batch numbered product which went through our system, we don’t accept cut strips,” Tandon added.

He further said that returns are not tedious for the company, since it runs a pure marketplace model in which the delivery boy goes directly from the vendor to the user, and for returns, it is picked up from the user and delivered to the vendor. “This is a lot like how pharmacies work in the offline context, we’re just a platform that facilitates that interaction and we don’t have any warehouses or hubs,” Tandon said.

COO appointment: Earlier this month, 1mg appointed Tanmay Saksena as COO. Saksena was previously with Zomato as its Global Business Head, looking at food ordering across India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Manila.

http://www.medianama.com/2016/05/223-1mg-funding-hbm-healthcare/

Indonesia keen to explore pharma, IT trade ties with India

Panaji: Though bilateral trade between Indonesia and India touched $14.45 billion, the trade figures are far from the true potential that trade opportunities offer for the two Asian countries. Consul general for the Republic of Indonesia Saut Siringoringo, while speaking to TOI, said that bilateral relations especially trade had suffered due to neglect on the part of both the countries.

"We find that India is a big market with very good potential. Last year we touched trade of $14.45 billion. This is very small. India and Indonesia are two of the three biggest countries in population in the region and are two members of G20 and these two countries are major economies in Asia. We have so much potential," Siringoringo said.

Siringoringo, along with the consul for economics Hariyanta Soetarto and director of Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre Walfred Tagor Manihuruk are in Goa to explore trade and investment opportunities. "For the time being we see that the most possible sectors to develop is pharmaceutical, Information Technology, education, manufacturing, biotechnology and fertilizers. "Implementation of ASEAN-India Free trade agreement has contributed a lot to increase trade relations," Soetarto said.

With Indonesia keen to spur investment and trade, a move has been made to revive the Biennial Trade Ministers' Forum. "At the end of May our minister of trade will meet your minister of trade. This forum between the ministers of trade that has been delayed by more than three to four years and there are a lot of things to discuss. The minister of trade will bring business leaders and there will be B2B meetings and government level meetings too," Siringoringo said.

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During this meeting, the two sides hope to ink the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement, a free trade agreement and other economic cooperation deals to boost growth between the two nations.


One of the key hurdles for better trade and tourism relations is the lack of direct flights between the two nations. The two nations have opened discussions to try and resolve the issue and deliberations indicate that direct flights from Mumbai and Delhi to Jakarta could be launched by mid-2016. The Indonesian minister of transport, who is also the official interlocutor between the two nations, has taken the issue on priority.

"I see the sincerity and serious discussions on this. We will help, facilitate such a direct flight from India," Soringoringo said.

Indonesian national carrier Garuda Indonesia has also expressed an interest to begin flights on Indian routes.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Indonesia-keen-to-explore-pharma-IT-trade-ties-with-India/articleshow/52034534.cms

Parul University Faculty of Pharmacy organizes two-days conference in india

Faculty of Pharmacy of city-based Parul University (PU) organized a two days international conference on 'advances in formulation development: challenges and applications' that concluded on Saturday.

The conference was aimed to enrich the knowledge of budding students, researchers, academicians and industrialist about the recent advances in formulation development with focus on their applications.

The conference highlighted the challenges faced during the development of new drug products.   

Distinguished national and international speakers were invited to deliver talks on various topics of the conference theme.

About 450 delegates from different parts of India participated in the conference and around 100 delegates presented their research work during poster presentation session.

During the scientific sessions, the conference covered different topics like target-based drug discovery and advanced nano-delivery system for herbal medicine, controlled release dosage form: drug release and factors influencing their drug, international regulatory requirements for drug product registrations, challenges in transdermal drug delivery, quorum sensing inhibitors to combat drug resistance and application of IVIVC in evaluation of formulations.

While Dr Sunil Jambhekar, professor of School of Pharmacy, of Florida-based Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine was chief guest at the inaugural function, Dr Pawan Kothari, vice-president operations (API), IPCA was chief guest at the valedictory function.

Baby survives after being given overdose in pharmacy blunder

An infant with a hole in his heart had his life put in danger after a pharmacy misread a prescription and gave him drugs 10 times stronger than they should have been.

His parents now face an anxious wait to see if their son has lasting brain damage and are about to lay a complaint with the Health and Disability Commissioner.

Ben Tuffin has called the ordeal a "nightmare" and is urging parents always to double-check their child's medication.

"I want to get the word out so other families know and take more precautions when it comes to scripts. Pharmacists need to check - when it's done by someone like that you put your trust in them."

On January 8, Tuffin and fiancee Nina Brickland welcomed Sydney Junior Tuffin into the world, but he was born with a hole in his heart.

The neonatal doctor at Middlemore prescribed 0.5ml a day of furosemide, a diuretic to keep the fluid off his lungs while he gained weight and grew strong enough for heart surgery. The parents went to a pharmacy not managed by the hospital to fill the script, then took their new son home. They thought they were doing everything right, administering the medicine once a day through Sydney's nasal tube and even had a home nurse visit daily.

But he kept losing weight.

The parents took him back to the hospital and Tuffin said the doctors and nurses instantly suspected what might be wrong.

Tests confirmed Sydney had very low sodium levels - a symptom of dehydration from an overdose of diuretics. Sydney had been given 5ml a day - 10 times the prescribed dose.

"Because he was on such a high dose, every bit of food or water, it was just sucking all of it out of him," Tuffin told the Herald on Sunday.

The doctor told him if they hadn't brought Sydney in, he would have suffered kidney damage. Because he spent a fortnight severely dehydrated, he could also have suffered brain damage, but they won't be able to tell for a few years.

The Herald on Sunday has seen the doctor's prescription, and the drugs dispensed by the pharmacy, which exposes the error.

Auckland University professor and neonatal paediatrician Jane Harding said furosemide could cause dehydration and kidney damage.

Although brain damage was possible, it was "extremely unlikely", she said.

Tuffin said he was furious at the pharmacy.

"We checked the script and the doctor got it right, it was the pharmacy that screwed it up ... they gave us full strength and they should have known straight away, because it was for a new-born baby.

"They were just careless.

"I wanted to go down to the pharmacy and have it out with the pharmacists but I kept my cool."

Tuffin said as soon as his son got the correct dosage, he started getting better. By the next day, he had gained 50 grams and after a further six days in the Kidz First unit, Sydney was discharged.

"If we actually had the correct dosage at the beginning, our baby would have been nice and strong and ready for surgery."

The pair intend laying a complaint about their ordeal with the Health and Disability Commissioner.

"I want them to be more on to it. If it's a new-born baby that's under six months and they're already sick, they need to be triple or quadruple checking these prescriptions."

The pharmacy involved did not respond to interview requests.

What is furosemide?

A diuretic that causes the kidneys to get rid of unneeded water and salt from the body into the urine.

• Correct dose: 0.5ml a day

• Dose given: 5ml a day

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11600767

Online pharmacies in India $18 billion market set to grow to $55 billion by 2020, are they even legal?

New Delhi: It’s a $18 billion market set to grow to $55 billion by 2020 and it’s finally beginning to get the kind of attention from investors and entrepreneurs those numbers warrant—despite uncertainty over the legality of the business itself.

The business is online pharmacies, and according to start-up data tracker Tracxn, so far, the sector has attracted $92.6 million funding with over $70 million coming only in 2015.

Almost 31 start-ups were launched last year, with the major chunk of investment announced by Netmeds ($60 million), followed by 1MG ($6 million) and Zigy ($3.2 million).

Investors include IT industry veteran Phaneesh Murthy (in Zigy) and global healthcare fund Orbimed (in Netmeds).

Some of them are no doubt taking heart from the Indian drug controller’s approach. In December, the Drug Controller General of India formed a seven-member panel to look into the issue of online drug sales.

“We are very clear on this issue; we want this technology in the country because our aim is to ensure that patients get quick service and of the right quality. We want to see how the issue can be addressed without compromising on safety. There are chances of abuse of technology as well that we want to plug,” said G.N. Singh, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).

This is a tricky sector, admits Hemant Bhardwaj, co-founder of Zigy, adding that he and Murthy hired three law firms in 2014 just to ascertain if the business was legal.

“It is largely about the interpretation of law. The Pharma Act had no clarity on electronic copy of a prescription. However, the IT Act says that any digital copy of a document will be valid if there is an original copy which can be presented at the time of verification,” said Bhardwaj, adding that he launched Zigy only after getting a green signal from the law firms.

The company, which runs a marketplace model, doesn’t own a pharma retail licence.

“If you are working as a marketplace, you are working on the licence of one of your vendors. Inventory is not held by the marketplace, it is held by the vendors,” said Bhardwaj.

That’s the same model followed by Netmeds (Netmeds Marketplace Ltd).

“If you look at e-commerce firms such as Flipkart, the bill is generated by WS Retail or other vendors. It is the same philosophy that works here, but in this case, the vendor needs to be an authorized licensed retailer to do so,” said Pradeep Dadha, founder and chief executive officer of Netmeds.

The company has made India Post its logistics partner for delivery.

It works with wholesalers and retailers on a commission basis and sells chronic medicines apart from nutritional products. It sells drugs after receiving a scanned copy of the prescription.

Earlier this month, it also forged partnerships with online doctor booking and consultation sites Lybrate Inc. and Doctor Insta Pvt. Ltd to serve their customers.

Most online pharmacies do not sell Schedule X medicines such as sleeping pills.

Zigy operates across five cities and has tied up with local vendors to comply with the law, which doesn’t allow drugs prescribed in one state to be sold by a pharmacist in another.

With more customers willing to shop online for just about anything, and smartphones facilitating such transactions, the timing is just right for online pharmacies, say entrepreneurs.

“We were waiting for the opportune time. The moment we saw people were buying spinach and okra online, we knew the market was ripe for us,” said Dadha of Netmeds.

And with smartphones, “clicking a picture of the prescription is easy”, said Prashant Tandon, co-founder of 1MG.

Industry experts estimate the market to be generating 3,000-4,000 orders on a daily basis.

The regulator’s positive stance has made companies and investors comfortable with the business models.

“The sector offers great business potential. Online sale of medicines is not a new concept. But in India, till we entered, there were hardly any online pharmacies with serious intent,” said Murthy, former chief executive of iGate Corp.

Much like in e-commerce, discounts are prevalent, although they rarely exceed 20%.

Still, that’s been enough to provoke the strong pharma retail lobby to protest the entry of online pharmacies.

The All India Chemists and Druggists Organization (AICDO) protested in October, accusing online pharmacies of taking away their business by offering deep discounts. The association also claimed that these firms would lead to a deterioration in the quality of medicines as they need to be stocked at specified temperatures.

Online firms, however, have now formed a lobby of their own called the Indian Internet Pharmacy Association (IIPA).

In an attempt to level the playing field, the DCGI issued a fresh circular on 30 December saying that, “the rules do not distinguish between the conventional and over the Internet sale of drugs”.

It, however, added that there will be a “strict vigil” on the online sale of medicines and action would be taken against companies if they are found to be in breach of regulations.

http://www.livemint.com/Companies/EGTOILRRNF0T3J4OfUg9SN/Will-online-pharmacies-work-in-India-and-are-they-even-lega.html

The pill that costs $9,000 in US sells for $70 in Indian Country

And that's just one leukaemia drug. India's generic industry has been producing many such life-saving medicines at a fraction of the global price

The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech might be the first to come out with a vaccine for the Zika virus if its efficacy can be proved. If it does succeed, this won't be the first time India has come to the rescue of the world. Indeed, the country's generic medicines are a lifeline for millions not only in low and middle-income countries but also in the developed world. India's generic industry hit global headlines in 2001 when Cipla offered a three-drug cocktail for AIDS at less than a dollar a day , a fraction of the price charged by multinationals. Today, apart from several HIVAIDS drugs, the industry is producing affordable, high quality medicines for several diseases including hepatitis B and C, cancers, drug-resistant TB and asthma. This has been credited to India's patent law, often held up as a model one in preventing the abuse of patent monopolies, and in balancing public interest and the growth of the pharmaceutical industry .

Last month, generic manufacturer Natco announced that it would be supplying daclatasvir, a Hepatitis C drug, to 112 developing countries. In 2013, a medicine to treat hepatitis C, sofosbuvir, hit international headlines for its price -$1,000 per pill. Gram for gram, it cost 67 times the price of gold. The sofosbuivir and daclatasvir combination used for the disease costs almost $150,000 per patient for the 12-week regimen in the US. But in India, it is priced at just $700 or a little over Rs 46,500 per patient for the same regimen. And prices are expected to fall further.

Typically, the price of many expensive patented drugs in European countries like France, Spain or the UK is half of what these cost in the US. In countries like Brazil or South Africa, these are a third or a fifth of the US price. The Indian price is often 1100th. (See box)

BALANCING PATIENT AND PATENT

So how does the Indian generic industry manage to do it? The patent law in India is stringent on what is innovative enough to get a patent. Plus, the crucial section 3(d) in the law, much criticized by multinationals, has prevented "evergreening" -the attempt to patent different aspects and improvements of the same drug to extend the period of patent -a lucrative game for the pharmaceutical business.

Indian courts, too, have played a role. In the case of entecavir for hepatitis B and erlotinib for lung cancer, for instance, instead of blindly handing out injunctions or upholding the validity of patents, the courts ruled in favour of public access to a lifesaving drug. This encouraged companies like Cipla, Ranbaxy and Natco to do a `launch at risk', a term that describes a company deciding to challenge a patent by launching a generic version. This forces the patent-holding company to take them to court, thus testing the validity of the patent granted. Patent oppositions filed by patient groups also spurred the rejection of several frivolous patent claims on cancer, hepatitis and HIV medicines, protecting generic competition.

India's patent law also provides for granting of compulsory licences -under which the government can give a licence to a manufacturer other than the patent holder for a royalty fixed by it -for public health reasons. This can be used where drugs are unavailable or unaffordable. The only compulsory licence granted was in 2012 when the patent office allowed the Indian generic company Natco to market sorafenib, a drug patented by Bayer to treat kidney and liver cancer.This move, upheld by the Supreme Court in December 2014 helped bring down the price by 97%, unimaginable through a price negotiation with the company .

"How long will this continue? We are already feeling the adverse impact of monopoly and limited access to important drugs. If India cannot manufacture newer drugs, how can we be the pharmacy of the world?" asked Dr Yusuf Hamied, of Cipla.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/The-pill-that-costs-9000-in-US-sells-for-70-in-India/articleshow/50887471.cms

First mobile pharmacist service offering to 15,000 users

Ireland’s first mobile pharmacist service offering home visits to review prescriptions and arrange a next-day drug delivery now has almost 15,000 members.

The service was launched a year ago by Healthwave, a Dublin-based pharmacy that also offers cheaper mediation with generic drugs.

Under Irish law, customers have to present their prescription to the pharmacist before their drugs can be dispensed. Many people had been travelling long distances to the pharmacy in Dundrum to save an average of 50% on prescription medication. Soon after opening, the pharmacist started offering a nationwide home- delivery service.

The pharmacy operates like a club, with adults paying an annual membership fee of €25. For families, the fee is €60 a year.

Healthwave founder Shane O’Sullivan, who graduated from University College Cork in 2008, said that around 500 people joinedHealthPass every month.

He said members got four free deliveries a year and after that the delivery charge is €5.

He said the pharmacy, which is based in Dundrum Shopping Centre, was expanding rapidly because of the volume of deliveries.

“We now have 35 full-time staff since we launched the delivery service in February 2015,” he said.

Mr O’Sullivan said people in Dublin could expect delivery on the same day with delivery drivers leaving the shop on the afternoon of the same day the prescription was collected.

For anywhere else in the country, Healthwave provides an overnight service.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/15000-users-for-first-mobile-pharmacy-service-380635.html