BENGALURU: A large portion of Indian medicine market is stuffed with fake drugs. Consumers often buy these substandard or forged products due to their easy availability and low price. Online medicine delivery startups are trying to solve this problem along with few others.

The issue of these counterfeit drugs is so crucial that the doctors now-a-days are advising patients to buy medicines from branded shops. This is even more difficult because there is very less possibility of a branded pharmacy in the neighborhood. Along with this, the patients find it difficult to get all prescribed drugs under one roof leading to price variations.

It is these drawbacks – besides, of course, the sheer convenience of online buying – that have resulted in a wide range of medicine delivery startups coming up in India. Here is the list of four startups that are trying to plug the offline and online loopholes in the medical delivery space, as reported by techinasia.com.

BookMEDS

BookMEDS was started in 2014 in Hyderabad and today serves more than 15,000 consumers. This online pharmacy market ensures free delivery of medicines within 24 hours and across 520 postal codes. The company has collaborated with 351 pharmacies that can be browsed according to the product categories like orthopedic, homecare, and baby care, through the attractively designed and easy-to-use website. 

BookMEDS was founded by Mohammed Abubakr, Subathra Santhanam, and Sajid Sikander. The startup has grown by 20 times last year and also operates in Kolkata now. BookMEDS was awarded as the Most Promising Startup Award at Bio Asia 2016.

The company never sells medicines without a valid prescription and thus prevents drugs getting into wrong use. The pharmacists verify the uploaded prescriptions before making the supply.  BookMEDS deliver medicines only from registered pharmacies that are procured from the authorized distributors. BookMeds also has an interesting blog that discusses variety of issues including health benefits of certain food to home remedies for solving various ailments.

Read Also: 11 Start-ups Graduate from GenNext Hub

Potential Start-Ups that can Make it Big in 2016