A 24-hour Lagos pharmacy chain makes a healthtech pivot

Three weeks in the past, I used to be in Lekki, an upscale a part of Lagos, for a weekend staycation. Someday that Saturday, a uninteresting headache crept in, the sort that makes you squint in daylight and want you had packed higher. I stepped into the closest pharmacy alongside Admiralty Method. Inside, the fluorescent lights glowed softly. The cabinets had been effectively organised and completely labelled. Every thing appeared precisely the place it belonged. I picked up a pain-relief drug, paid, and left. But, one thing in regards to the place stayed with me.

Days later, on a name with Odunola Oyegade, all of it made sense. I had walked into one of many 4 Mopheth Pharmacy shops she and her husband personal throughout Lagos. What started as a 12-square-metre store in Adeola Odeku road, Victoria Island, now serves as much as 150,000 prospects each month. Nobody ready me for the readability of her imaginative and prescient or how she and her husband bootstrapped all of it with simply ₦50,000 ($544.5)*, an entrepreneurial and spiritual religion, and a relentless concentrate on high quality. 

Immediately, she’s taking that wealth of expertise into the digital healthtech sector with Hexia Well being, constructing with the identical confidence and stride of imaginative and prescient.

Grit follows imaginative and prescient

Odunola Oyegade, a educated pharmacist, began Mopheth Pharmacy together with her husband, Adekunle Oyegade, who can be a pharmacist from a household line of entrepreneurial healthcare professionals. She, too, had a knack for entrepreneurship, recalling how she would go to her grandfather’s dwelling throughout the holidays as a baby to promote items on the retailer he owned. 

She studied at Ahmadu Bello College, Zaria, then landed a job as a full-time pharmacist afterward. Even then, she was decided to boost the bar for pharmacy care in Nigeria and construct a observe individuals may belief. In 1997, her now-husband, Adekunle, based Mopheth, whereas she took to his aspect as co-founder.

“We registered [Mopheth] earlier than we had been even married. We knew what we needed to do, however didn’t know when and the way it was going to occur,” Oyegade mentioned. 

It took some time earlier than enterprise ultimately kicked in for the pharmacist couple. There was no exterior funding, and the Nineteen Nineties didn’t present a sort local weather for enterprise. This was largely as a result of entrepreneurs in Nigeria on the time confronted obstacles corresponding to poor electrical energy provide, insufficient entry to finance, excessive prices of doing enterprise, and unreliable infrastructure. All of those made it troublesome to start out and maintain new ventures. Even at this time, not a lot has modified.

But, this didn’t deter the couple. The Oyegades opened a pharmacy as a result of they noticed one thing unsuitable within the sector: individuals had been misusing medication.

“Let’s assume a buyer needed to purchase an antibiotic, and so they wanted 20 as the correct dosage. They’d stroll into shops and ask them to ‘lower 5’ so they may really feel higher for a day or two,” mentioned Oyegade.

However good intentions alone don’t run a enterprise. At one level, the couple tried to get a ₦100,000 (($1,089)* financial institution mortgage and had been turned down. Within the Nineteen Nineties, Nigeria’s banking sector was going by a wave of consolidation. A number of banks had been closing down for failing to satisfy capitalisation necessities, and those that remained wanted to make sure they did enterprise proper and shielded themselves from threat.

“They didn’t give us [the loan], possible as a result of we didn’t have sufficient income. The banks most likely thought we had been too small to be provided that sum of money,” mentioned Oyegade.

Thankfully, across the time they had been looking for a mortgage, her husband, Adekunle, secured a ₦50,000 ($544.5)* enterprise contract. With that cash, they opened their first retailer. Oyegade added her wage to the hassle. It lined the price of a shelf, simply sufficient house to inventory the medication they introduced in from suppliers over the next weeks.

Not with the ability to increase exterior funding possible slowed their progress, but it surely additionally taught them to run lean. They realized minimise losses and perceive the market. Within the early days, it was simply the 2 of them working as pharmacists and enterprise homeowners. Mopheth stayed open across the clock to compete in a market the place comfort typically determines buyer loyalty.

Operating a 24-hour pharmacy in Lagos will not be a small feat. It requires hiring in shifts, holding cabinets stocked by the night time, and making certain safety for each workers and prospects. Most neighborhood pharmacies keep away from it altogether. However for Mopheth, being out there at any time turned a key a part of the model’s identification.

Immediately, Mopheth nonetheless retains its doorways open 24 hours a day. The distinction is, now there are lots of extra fingers to assist.

“It was numerous laborious work. It was numerous believing. And don’t overlook, we attend a church, Daystar Christian Centre, that teaches entrepreneurship,” mentioned Oyegade. “Whereas rising Mopheth, we learn so much and valued data. We by no means noticed challenges, despite the fact that they got here. We simply thrived on a chance mindset. We set objectives that appeared too huge to attain, however due to that mindset, we simply went for it.”

An eye fixed for an issue

The Oyegades observed that individuals generally wanted extra assist with their drugs after they got here to pharmacies. They noticed that there was an opportunity to do extra, particularly when it got here to explaining issues and ensuring prospects understood use their medicines.

They needed to do issues otherwise. Their purpose was to ensure individuals received good medication and in addition knew use it the correct manner. They took time with every individual, answered questions, and handled everybody with care. For them, it was not nearly promoting medication. It was about serving to individuals get higher.

The Oyegades needed to alter that. They needed their pharmacy to be a spot the place individuals felt welcome and cared for.

The couple educated their workers to do extra than simply rely tablets. By way of Mopheth Academy, they taught their hires hear, suppose, and deal with individuals with respect. It was about being pharmacist alone, but in addition about having good character and function.

“We didn’t need individuals to come back in solely after they had been sick,” Oyegade mentioned. “We needed them to come back in as a result of they trusted us.” 

And little by little, that belief grew.

Immediately, Mopheth is likely one of the most well-known pharmacy chains in Lagos, with its shops receiving as much as 150,000 guests month-to-month, in keeping with Oyegade. However for her, the most important lesson from almost three a long time of constructing a pharmacy enterprise is studying adapt.

As a conventional, brick-and-mortar operation, Mopheth had its limits. The pharmacy chain diminished its retailer rely from six to 4 and took its enterprise on-line. Within the final 5 years, it has launched an e-commerce platform to ship healthcare merchandise, added telemedicine and session companies, and launched a instrument that reminds prospects to take their treatment.

Now, Oyegade needs to take that progress additional.

A loss too near dwelling spurred motion

Oyegade joined our chat from the US, having simply flown in from Paris. At moments throughout the interview, she paused to take a name or communicate to somebody within the background. But, Oyegade took my questions calmly at the same time as she tended to enterprise and private issues within the background. Then she broke the information.

“We’re not only a pharmacy anymore,” Oyegade shared. “We’re launching a brand new mannequin. Within the new mannequin, we now have the pharmacy, however we even have the grocery store, we now have the café, we now have the bakery, we now have cosmetics, electronics, each type of it. Whether or not it’s your kitchen, your lounge, your well being, your family, we seize all the pieces underneath one roof.”

Mopheth, in its new type, sounds  like a cash-and-carry supermart, and it may very well be taking cues from world retail giants like Costco, whereas adapting its enterprise to Nigeria’s retail and well being ecosystem. However the ambition doesn’t finish there.

Oyegade can be constructing Hexia Well being, a healthtech product that launched out of ache. 

“I misplaced some family members,” she mentioned, her voice regular. “And the explanation why they died is as a result of there was a delayed prognosis. By the point the prognosis got here, it was the final stage. They couldn’t be saved.”

The indicators had been there. Complications. Fatigue. Small issues that didn’t appear to be hazard till it was too late.

“ that when you might have a headache, you don’t shout out to everyone. You’ll simply use Panadol, proper?” she requested rhetorically. “It’s solely whenever you’re mendacity flat on the mattress that everybody realises one thing’s unsuitable with you.”

Hexia Well being, the instrument she’s constructing, is designed to catch individuals earlier than they flip a nook for the more severe. The platform lets customers verify signs, communicate with docs or pharmacists, schedule lab checks, obtain e-prescriptions, and get drugs delivered, all from their telephones.

However what makes Hexia exceptional will not be the expertise. It’s the place the considering started. International digital well being platforms are constructed with customers within the UK, US, or Europe in thoughts. By the point they attain Africa, they’re typically a poor match. They rely upon quick web, assume common energy provide, and observe scientific requirements or consumer behaviours that don’t at all times apply right here, mentioned Oyegade. That is why it can be crucial for Africans with native context to construct for Africans.