Medicine Segment of HealthCare Industry

Surabhi Chauhan

PGP-1st Year

Information Management

SPJIMR

Contents

1-Medicines Categories & Product Analysis

2-Target Market

3-Market Analysis

3.1-Internal (SWOT)

3.2-External

1-Medicines Categories & Product Analysis

Due to poor sanitation conditions, infectious (acute) diseases are predominant in India. However, the

incidence of chronic ailments has been increasing with the emergence of lifestyle diseases in India, due

to changing work pattern of the working population, higher stress levels, and unhealthy eating habits.

Product Analysis:

- About 66 per cent of total drugs sold are used to treat acute diseases.

-Acute ailments are prominent in India but chronic drugs drive the formulation sales.

Acute ailments: Characterized by sudden, severe exposure and rapid spread of the disease. Infectious

diseases - Anti-infectives, Gastrointestinals,Pain/analgesics

Chronic ailments: Characterised by repeated exposures over a prolonged period of time. diabetes,

asthma, blood pressure, cancer - Cardiovascular system drugs,Respiratory,Anti-diabetic

2-Target Market

2.1- Urban Sector

- Busy schedule of people

-Save time and saves efforts to look for medicines from store-to-store

- Emphasis on Chronic drugs

- Emphasis on customer retention

2.2- Rural Sector

-High demand for basic supplements (protein diets and multi-vitamins)

-High demand for low cost and generic drugs.

- Emphasis on Acute drugs and on-time delivery

3- Market Analysis

3.1- Internal Analysis

Strengths

-MeraMedicare promotes low cost generic drugs

- comparision of prices of the drugs available in various stores : this assures the customers of best price

in the market with best discounts (if applicable)

- alternatives of the medicine based on composition (in case particular medicine is not available)

- Because MeraMedicare works with partner pharmacies it assures the customer that they receive the

best quality medicines, and there is no monopoly.

This also gives MeraMedicare an edge over other online Medicine stores like Medidart and Buydrug

which have their own physical pharmacy outlets.

- Online Pharmacies need not take separate license as per the Drugs and Cosmetics Act because they are

only an online platform connecting consumers with existing offline pharmacies (which already have a

license).

Weakness

- should be abreast with technology: Mobile app with advanced features

- Awareness of the online medicines portal in the market

- it might take time to build trust among customers for its credibility

Opportunities

- tapping the rural segment by improving awareness, low cost medicines and improving logistics

- Urban Segment :

- partnership with private doctors for option of submitting the prescription online

Options available for patients in the app/portal :

1-Pre-requisites - patient should have an account

2- Now the patients will have the options

-to purchase them on their own or get the medicines delivered to their home after selection based on

price or discounts (this might vary as per the level of emergency for the patient)

- medicines will be delivered directly to patient’s home and they will not have to search for medicines

from store to store

- effortless and time saver

- electronic records , easy to maintain

- reminder for medicines when it is about to get over

-mobile app for reminder

Threats

- laws governing the operations of e-pharmacies

-The declining growth of generic drugs in the years to come (source : Crisil)

-In the absence of clear guidelines and rules, online pharmacies are relying on various interpretations of

the IT Act and Drugs and Cosmetics Act to conduct business – this may lead to low trust issues on the

online medical companies by the customers

3.2- External Analysis

Technological : Technology can help in meeting the healthcare objective of India.

i) Mobile penetration - global – 93% , india – 73%

India still has the scope of increasing its mobile base.

ii) Internet penetration – 19.2%, Online medical firms stand a good chance in expanding their customer

base

ii) Indian government is planning to spend Rs 500 crore on computer literacy project for 50 lakh people

over a period of 3 years.

Market growth in medicines :

The Indian healthcare sector is expected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9 per

cent during 2015-20.

A growing population, increasing awareness on healthcare and rising per capita income enabled the

domestic formulations market to post a 12.3 per cent CAGR over the last five years.

Rising income level, greater health awareness, increased precedence of lifestyle diseases and improved

access to insurance would be the key contributors to growth.

Economic factors:

The Government of India aims to develop India as a global healthcare hub. It has created the National

Health Mission (NHM) for providing effective healthcare to both the urban and rural population. The

Government is also providing policy support in the form of reduced excise and customs duty, and

exemption in service tax, to support growth in healthcare.

References :

http://www.ibef.org/

https://www.crisilresearch.com

https://agenda.weforum.org/