India is one of the countries where the prices of drugs and pharmaceuticals are the cheapest in the world, but access to healthcare is still one of the major problems which plague the Country. A majority of urban population, along with the rural population in India, does not have any idea about proper nutrition, medicinal and dietary advice and the idea for 1mg, an e pharmacy startup, began on this premise.
Beginnings
1mg was initially started as HealthKartPlus, a platform which aggregated medical information and sold alternative medicine to its users. The platform caught up quickly with the users and soon the users began asking for delivery of medicines to be included as well. That was when 1mg was founded by Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal and Vikas Chauhan in 2015. At a time when information and awareness about medicines and lab tests were either minimal or non existent, 1mg aimed to change it. HealthKartPlus now stocks and offers health and dietary supplements and targets a younger demographic audience.
Services
After rebranding itself as a platform offering sales of generic drugs and pharmaceuticals, 1mg currently has 2 other major verticals (business areas)—doctor consultations and lab tests. Users can go on the website or mobile phone app of 1mg to avail any of their services like ordering medicines, booking an appointment with a doctor or booking a lab test, which is neatly classified according to health and body categories.
Quality and information checks
Pharmaceuticals are very sensitive and need to be stored and tracked properly and on an online marketplace like this, there needs to be a system in place to ensure the quality of the medicines. 1mg has a system in place where they onboard vendors onto the platform if they meet certain requirements like computerised inventory and invoicing, which makes end to end tracking easier for the customer. The startup is able to generate business even after strict government compliances which banned online pharmacies by making a prescription mandatory to make a purchase.
Adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
With AI being hailed as the technology of the future, every startup is trying to adapt it in some capacity to streamline and optimise their offerings. 1mg recently started offering a feature, ‘Ask a Doctor,’ which is an intuitive chatbot that asks questions in order to accurately identify what the problem may be and shows the medicinal specializations under which the ailment may fall. Users can choose from one of them and a doctor, who can diagnose the problem via chat, is assigned to you.
With technology changing everyday, 1mg established itself in the e pharmacy market place as a major player. They currently deliver medicines and health products to homes across more than a thousand cities in India from licensed and verified pharmacies.
Read about how this company is recycling electronic waste: How Namo E-Waste Is Solving A Major Environmental Issue
