Health Tech Startup Set to Grow in Africa
Ghanaian health tech startup mPharma is building a network of community pharmacies across Africa as it plans to be the go-to primary healthcare service provider for millions of people. Drug supply in Africa is often unaffordable and counterfeits are rife.
The startup’s community (Mutti) pharmacies are essentially mini-hospitals offering affordable services, ranging from medical consultation to diagnostic and telehealth services.
The company plans more Mutti pharmacies to extend its reach ater raising $35 million, bringing the total amount raised by mPharma to $65 million.
According to mPharma co-founder and CEO Gregory Rockson told TechCrunch, the new financing will be used to ramp up its infrastructure, staff and expansion into African markets.
“We are hiring over 100 engineers to build all our technology in-house and this includes a massive data infrastructure we are creating. We are also investing in other skilled talent like doctors and nurses, professionals that are critical in the work we do,” Rockson told TechCrunch.
Originally founded in 2013, mPharma aims to manage prescription drug inventory for pharmacies and their suppliers, retail pharmacy operations and to provide market intelligence to hospitals, pharmacies and patients.
In October 2021, the startup added telehealth services to its portfolio, catching the telemedicine wave brought in by the COVID pandemic. Rockson told TechCrunch the startup was planning to have 100 virtual centres after six months. The number of virtual centres is primed to grow further alongside mPharma’s plan to increase its community pharmacies from 200 to over 2000 in three years.
Patients in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda and Ethiopia, where mPharma has a presence, can access these virtual services. Startups like mPharma aim to address healthcare gaps in Africa.
Sub-Saharan African countries have an average of 0.23 doctors for every 10 000 people against the best ratio of 84.2 doctors in some of the most developed countries. In addition, healthcare infrastructure remains critically underdeveloped.
“COVID showed us that the best form of care is local, it is in the community, and the closest thing in communities are pharmacies. We believe that the pharmacy of the future, which is what we are creating, is one built around longitudinal care not episodic care,” said Rockson.
“We are transforming community pharmacies into the foundation of a modern health system in Africa. We will have a Mutti pharmacy in every community on the continent, guarantee the availability and safety of medicines for each community and utilise the physical infrastructure of Mutti pharmacies to expand Mutti Doctor (the telemedicine service), creating the largest network of doctor offices and diagnostic centres.”
Source: TechCrunch
