Blazing a trail for healthcare supply chains
DrugStoc is a HealthTech company founded in Nigeria in 2016. This week we caught up with their co-founders, Adham Yehia & Chibuzo Opara to learn more.
What challenge does Drugstoc solve?
The way we get drugs in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa is broken. This stems from our fragmented distribution systems and has led to all sorts of complications with pharmaceuticals.
Some of the biggest challenges facing the industry include the influx of counterfeit and sub-standard medication, opaque pricing and price gouging by middle men and a lack of access to certain types of pharmaceuticals and healthcare products.
DrugStoc tackles this by providing a tech platform which connects manufacturers directly to hospitals and pharmacies seeking to service their clients.
What were you doing before founding the company?
Adham Yehia managed hospitals and clinics. Chibuzo Opara worked as a medical doctor and a health economist. He also had previous stints at the International Finance Corporation, the World Health Organisation and the European Agency for Health and Consumers.
How did you get DrugStoc off the ground?
We attended the Stanford Seed program and worked closely with the CcHub team.
How much money have you raised so far?
Over a million USD via one round of financing.
What went into building the early stage product?
Blood, sweat and tears… (hahaha). Seriously though, building a company takes dedication, commitment and single minded focus. We also caught a few breaks and had a lot of support from the industry and a great team!
What’s your tech stack?
Angular.js, typescript, Python, Django & PostgreSQL
What’s your business model?
Our cloud based pharma distribution platform allows hospitals, pharmacies and healthcare providers to source their needed pharmaceutical and healthcare products. They do this by interacting directly with the manufacturer and then we deliver the products to our clients within 24 hours.
What metric do you use to measure success and why?
We measure our impact through how many patients our clients are able to service with our counterfeit proof medication. We started DrugStoc to make a difference in the experience patients and healthcare providers have with the pharmaceutical supply chain.
What do you love most and least about running DrugStoc?
I love the opportunity to impact the healthcare industry and transform it. It's a tough industry and everyday comes with a fresh challenge but we relish challenges and we are stubborn (haha).
What companies do you look to for inspiration and why?
Zappos (Now part of Amazon) because of how customer focussed both companies are
What are your views on the African tech ecosystem?
It’s steadily evolving and will get bigger and better over the coming years. The tech ecosystem presents a great opportunity for the continent to leap frog a lot of the infrastructure challenges inherent within our systems whether they be education, financial services, healthcare. Happy to be alive and a part of the transformation and the build process.
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