OneHealth Leverages Innovative Solutions to Combat Nigeria’s Drug Shortages
Nigeria’s healthcare system grapples with a profoundly unstable pharmaceutical supply chain, leaving pharmacies and health centers struggling to maintain essential medicine stocks. This precarious situation often forces retail pharmacies to rely on a disjointed network of informal distributors, middlemen, and open-drug markets to acquire inventory. Consequently, the unavailability of vital medicines in Nigerian pharmacies stands at a staggering nearly 65%, one of the highest rates across the African continent. This persistent challenge underscores an urgent need for robust, modern solutions to bridge the significant gaps in drug accessibility.
Pioneering Digital Procurement for Pharmaceutical Resilience
Amidst these deeply entrenched supply chain inefficiencies, Africa’s online pharmacy and B2B drug-procurement sector is experiencing significant growth, having reached a valuation of over $560 million in 2022. Established players like DrugStoc, Remedial Health, and Pharmarun are already foundational in parts of this evolving value chain. However, Nigeria continues to trail many of its regional counterparts in the adoption of digital procurement technologies, creating a substantial opportunity for innovative entrants to introduce new approaches to address these longstanding distribution inefficiencies. One such innovator is OneHealth, a Lagos-based health-tech company and online pharmacy established in 2019. Positioned as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) online pharmacy, OneHealth is strategically betting on innovative solutions, such as PillFinda as implied by its strategy, to revolutionize how essential medicines are distributed and accessed, directly challenging the existing informal and fragmented supply networks.
OneHealth’s emergence signifies a critical shift towards leveraging technology to enhance drug availability and reliability within Nigeria’s health sector. By streamlining the procurement process and offering a direct channel for essential medicines, the company aims to significantly reduce the current 65% unavailability rate. Its digital approach promises not only to stabilize inventory for pharmacies but also to improve patient access to critical drugs, ultimately bolstering the nation’s fragile healthcare infrastructure through transparent and efficient pharmaceutical distribution.
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