Pharmacist A

Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) - Registered Pharmacist.

4 years experience as Locum Pharmacist

What are the biggest risks to adoption?

• Competing with vertically integrated model - the major chains have their own distribution sister companies e.g. boots (alliance) Lloyds (aah) etc which gets them discounts, how will this startup compete with a vertically integrated approach?

• Buyer/User mismatch - Decision markers will not be pharmacists but the owners who may or not be the main pharmacist or even work there as you don't need to be a pharmacist to own a pharmacy in this country.

• Integration friction - Stock management is an integrated part of the software pharmacies use to manage patients, dispense prescriptions, create labels, and record notes. Often as you dispense a medication, the same software will generate an order pad to replace the displaced medication, where all you need to do is authorise, and then the order will be transmitted replacing what you have used. There is not much need in having another software/layer of resistance.

• Fixed price supplier contracts - Hospitals work on formularies regarding what medication is or is not acceptable to be purchased alongside having various contracts with suppliers for fixed price medication over a set duration and they replace 1 for 1 what they dispense similarly to community pharmacy + buffer stock for high volume products.

• Degree of problem - They aren't spending much time as its typically one in one out, the dispenser at the point of dispensing would log it into the order pad, and then it just gets a quick review by the pharmacist before sending the transmission.