Flipkart Eyeing Pan-India Expansion Of Its Epharmacy Health+

Walmart-owned Flipkart is looking to expand its epharmacy business, Flipkart Health+, across the country. The ecommerce major is eyeing cities beyond Tier-I to compete with its rivals.

The epharmacy has begun this process by starting deliveries of medicines and healthcare products across the country, including remote areas, Flipkart Health+ CEO Prashant Jhaveri told ET.

Flipkart Health+ currently offers 83,000 medicines and healthcare products, delivering to around 20,000 pin codes in the country. The platform also features a content library of articles and videos about general healthcare

“We plan to expand into multiple other healthcare services to provide affordable, caring, and innovative healthcare solutions,” Jhaveri said. He added that Flipkart Health+ has built a network of trusted pharmacists and doctors to meet the needs of customers.

The CEO was cited as saying that Flipkart will aim to deliver to Tier-II+ cities across the country to allow users in those cities to benefit from similar accessibility and availability of affordable medicines and healthcare products as the users in Tier-I and metro cities.

It is prudent to mention that Flipkart’s foray into the epharmacy segment happened inorganically. In November 2021, the ecommerce giant picked up a 75.1% stake in Kolkata-based healthtech startup SastaSundar Marketplace, which ran the online pharmacy platform SastaSundar.com.

Post-acquisition, SastaSundar was relabelled as Flipkart Health+. SastaSundar still owns a minority stake in Flipkart’s epharmacy business and is the company’s wholesale partner and has 20 warehouses across the country.

Flipkart Health+ competes with the likes of Tata-owned 1mg, Reliance-owned Netmeds, IPO-bound Pharmeasy and Amazon Pharmacy in the crowded epharmacy segment.

Epharmacies have also attracted a fair share of controversies recently. In April, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) called for a ban on Flipkart Health+ and Amazon Pharmacy, along with other epharmacy businesses operating in the country.

The trade body also called for stricter regulations for epharmacy companies. Later in July, the government came out with the draft New Drugs, Medical Devices and Cosmetics Bill 2022, including epharmacies under the bill’s ambit.

As per Section 41(2) of the draft Bill, online pharmacies will now have to acquire a licence to continue operating as usual. The draft bill also includes suggestions for regulating epharmacies further. Online pharmacies would also not be permitted to sell medical devices without a licence if the bill is passed into law.

Meanwhile, India’s healthtech market is estimated to reach $21 Bn in 2025 as telemedicine and preventive healthcare grow in popularity among Indian consumers, according to an Inc42 report.

India’s healthtech segment has more than 5,000 startups which raised nearly $6 Bn between 2014 and November 29, 2022. Among healthtech startups, online pharmacy startups raised $1.25 Bn during the same period, showing robust growth.