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By Job Osazuwa
Wellness Healthcare Group has developed an online marketplace, called Pharmacentre, for the seamless distribution of pharmaceutical products across Nigeria.
According to the managing director and chief executive officer of the group, Adetutu Afolabi, the platform was designed by information technology experts to also checkmate circulation of fake products.
Explaining how the portal works, she said everybody, dealers and retailers, could trade their stock on Phamacentre and eliminate the stress of physically sourcing drugs from one storehouse to another.
She said, with the birth of the platform, innovation has helped in surmounting the inconveniences encountered by stakeholders in the course of buying medicines and other pharmaceutical products.
Afolabi explained that wholesalers and retailers could check the prices on the portal before making a purchase. She added that no one was limited by distance anymore.
Addressing how counterfeit drugs would be curtailed, she said the Pharmacists’ Council of Nigeria (PCN) was carried along in implementing strict regulation on every drug on display.
“It is highly controlled because there are pharmacists who are constantly on the platform. No unregistered vendor can trade on the platform. We can close any vendor’s store on the app that is not doing the right thing.
“Any drug without OTC will not be accepted on the platform. If you want to buy a prescription drug, there is also a provision for that where you will upload the prescription and speak with the pharmacist for counselling.
“We are meeting Nigerians on their devices and delivering health care to them,” Afolabi said.
National president of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Prof. Cyril Usifo, agreed that technology was needed to drive the sale and dispensing of drugs and other products to improve the health of Nigerians.
He said: “We should not be left behind and we should embrace the future of digitalising what we do as pharmacists and as businessmen in the sector. I believe that the chaotic drug distribution we have in the country will be solved by proper digitalisation of our pharmaceutical centres. If we are not ready to change, we will be left behind.”
On her part, a director in PCN, Mrs. Ukamaka Okafor, who represented the registrar of the council, Elijah Mohammed, said that all pharmacists must be registered before operating on the online platform.
