Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mpharma 2021 Impact Report
Mpharma 2021 Impact Report
Annual Impact
Report
2021
Table of Contents
1
Message from our CEO
At the start of 2020, we were more committed than ever in our quest to make affordable healthcare
more accessible to patients in Africa; we dubbed it “Year of the Patient.” At the time, the depth of what
this would require of us was not entirely apparent. 2020 was a test of everything we stood for as a
healthcare technology company. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the underlying challenges in the
healthcare sector, prompting us to respond with creative solutions for improving access not only to
medications, but to key health services such as molecular diagnostics testing. Indeed, our world has
changed profoundly these last few years - and continues to do so - but our laser focus on patients
and building an Africa that is in good health continues to guide every decision we make as a business.
The pandemic challenged the core of our work, but more importantly, added meaning to our cause.
We proved to ourselves, our investors, and our partners that there is no limit to the heights we can
attain when we work together and focus on delivering value to our customers.
By the end of 2020, we had become a powerhouse of solutions to the numerous challenges caused by
the pandemic. Firstly, we recognised that the private health sector is a significant partner in
healthcare delivery. We anticipated that African governments would face challenges in rolling out free
Covid-19 tests and proactively leveraged our relationship with mPharma investor, Breyer Capital, to
establish a partnership with Sansure Biotech, a leading diagnostics solution provider in China, to
secure one million Covid-19 test kits and 150 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machines to distribute
across government institutions, private labs, and organisations in eight African countries. Secondly,
when the disruption of the global drug supply chain began to adversely affect patients, we launched
"Mutti Keep My Price" which capped drug prices for persons living with chronic diseases. Thirdly,
knowing firsthand the challenges of securing funding for business operations, we partnered with
Standard Chartered Bank to invest $3 million to provide laboratories in Nigeria and Ghana with
funding for upgrading their molecular diagnostics infrastructure.
Back in 2019, we developed a two-year retail strategy for mPharma; at the heart of it was our
conversion franchising model known as QualityRx – a playbook for transforming any pharmacy into a
primary care provider. Later that year, we partnered with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to
introduce QualityRx to Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors (PPMVs) in Nigeria under the brand
“GoodHealth”. PPMVs in our network grew average revenues by 117% year-over-year, driven by
patients consolidating their spending at their local GoodHealth shop. The GoodHealth franchise is a
powerful example of building organised retail models for lower-income customers; it reinforces our
belief that commercial models for healthcare access can be built even in low-income communities,
but it requires significant investments upfront to build trust in these communities.
As a continent, we need to build a healthcare system that can withstand future pandemics without
compromising on the ability to meet current health needs; mPharma is committed to playing its part
in building that system.
2
Mutti members benefit the most from our solutions
Our most valuable customers are our mutti members. We have over 150,000 mutti members and
counting, up from 9,934 on December 31, 2019. In a survey conducted by 60 Decibels, 72% of patients
reported that their drug prices were lower in mutti pharmacies, and 77% of patients reported using
their mutti pharmacy almost exclusively; more than 90% of patients reported rare experiences of
stockouts with mutti. We built an enterprise version of mutti which pharmaceutical companies have
adopted as a trusted market access and patient support program (PSP) solution. Today, over 50% of
the ten most prominent global pharmaceutical companies are our clients. I am most proud of our
Her-Radio program with Roche. Before the program, breast cancer patients in Nigeria dropped off
treatment after their 5th vial of Herceptin. Today, several patients in the program have completed all
18 vials of Herceptin required for treatment and are in better health!
We spend much time thinking about this question at mPharma. It is at the core of our product
roadmap for Bloom, our proprietary pharmacy management software. QualityRx allows us to deploy
Bloom in any pharmacy and this facilitates growth at scale. Most importantly, we are able to control
drug prices, implement clinical services, and collect patient outcome data with one software. Existing
pharmacy management software solutions are built around sales and inventory management.
We believe the pharmacy of the future requires software that has patient management as its core
process enabler - think of it as a pharmacy-only electronic medical records system (EMR). Bloom
represents this future. Before the pandemic highlighted pharmacies as a critical piece of any
country’s healthcare infrastructure, we had identified community pharmacies as the most important
channels for reimagining primary care delivery in Africa.
Beginning in 2022, we are focusing on building Africa’s biggest primary care Health Management
Organisation (HMO). We are working to transform community pharmacies into the foundation of a
modern health system in Africa. To achieve this, we will have a mutti pharmacy or GoodHealth shop
in every community on the continent to guarantee the availability of quality medicines for these
communities. We will leverage the physical infrastructure of our partners to expand Mutti Doctor, our
virtual doctor office service, and create Africa’s largest network of doctor offices and diagnostic
centres. Mutti Doctor will provide each community with a care coordination team consisting of a
primary care physician, a community health nurse, and a pharmacist.
3
Using Bloom, we will build structured population health datasets that enable pharmacies and
medicine vendors to provide better care pathways to their communities through the following:
Mutti Doctor: a digital primary care service that provides mutti pharmacies with software and
medical devices that enable physicians to perform remote medical examinations of the heart, lung,
ear, throat, skin, and abdomen. Mutti Doctor uses an all-in-one digital stethoscope, otoscope,
thermometer, and examination camera with built-in illumination for high-definition skin and throat
images. More importantly, patients can access timely virtual consultations in their trusted community
pharmacy at no cost.
mLab: a point of care diagnostic service offered in mutti pharmacies. By utilising rapid diagnostic test
kits and point of care testing analysers, mutti patients can get tested for a variety of conditions such
as malaria and syphillis. Test results can be sent electronically through Bloom to the patient’s
physician for follow-up care.
Community Health: free preventative health screenings and education for people in communities
where mutti pharmacies exist. The program deploys nurses into the community to provide health
education, blood pressure tests, blood sugar tests, weight and height assessments.
Test and Treat: our point of care testing service that encourages the discipline of testing before
treament at mutti pharmacies for diseases such as malaria. For chronic diseases, we provide patients
with medical devices, a mobile application, and tailored coaching to help them self-manage their
condition.
We raised $35 million in equity and debt in 2021 to fund this three-year vision. This amount is the first
tranche of a big financing round we intend to finalise this year. We are grateful to all our existing
shareholders and new investors of mPharma, including Lux Capital, for placing a bet on us. The
health crisis in 2020 had an enormous impact on every aspect of our lives and its effects still linger.
My team and I remain resilient in our quest to serve patients, and I am immensely grateful for the
opportunity to lead such an incredibly committed team. I want to thank all our frontline workers for
choosing boldness amidst fear and uncertainty. I applaud our mutti pharmacy partners and mutti
members for sticking with us and believing in our value-added services.
I look forward to impacting many more lives and businesses through the work of our Wholesale,
Diagnostics, and Retail Business Units in the years ahead.
Onwards!
4
Our Impact in
Figures
5
Our Impact
40+ 9+ 95+
Diagnostics Lab Partners Operating Countries GoodHealth Shops
6
Our Journey
7
2013 E-Prescription
2016
VMI
Our Business Evolution
2018 QualityRx
2018 Mutti
2019 PSPs
2020 Bloom
2020 Diagnostics
2021 mymutti.com
8
Our Regional Footprint
Ghana Ethiopia
176 Staff Members 1 Mutti Pharmacy
42 Mutti Pharmacies
Uganda
43 Staff Members
Nigeria 11 Mutti Pharmacies
174 Staff Members
29 Mutti Pharmacies
Kenya
99 Staff Members
36 Mutti Pharmacies
Gabon
2 Staff Members
Rwanda
13 Staff Members
14 Mutti Pharmacies
Malawi
4 Staff Members
Zambia 5 Mutti Pharmacies
74 Staff Members
21 Mutti Pharmacies
Data as of 2021
9
Our Journey: Designing affordable
healthcare solutions
From our incorporation in 2013 to date, the vision of mPharma has remained unchanged: to make
affordable healthcare more accessible to every African. Our business models have, however, evolved
over time as we have pivoted in the face of challenges - from e-prescription to conversion
franchising - in order to achieve this vision.
E-Prescription
When we started mPharma, our focus was on digitising drug dispensation data to provide better
information to healthcare providers and patients about the availability of quality medications. We
built an e-prescription system that allowed doctors to know the availability of the medications they
wanted to prescribe in real-time and to collect valuable data from patients about how they
responded to treatment via an automated survey. This solution also allowed us to collect and
analyse data on health trends. However, we soon discovered that digital prescriptions did not solve
the underlying problem that patients face: inability to access the drugs prescribed and, more
importantly, inability to afford them due to the exorbitant margins charged by the various
stakeholders along the drug supply chain. We needed a solution that could remedy the challenge of
availability, accessibility, and affordability of drugs in order to provide value to patients.
Wholesale: VMI
To address availability and accessibility, we began a pilot in Ghana which provided branded
hypertension and diabetes medications to a number of hospitals at a substantially reduced price. It
was a huge success and we quickly realised that the key to progress in the complex healthcare
ecosystem was to keep our margins low and to ensure that all the critical stakeholders along the
drug supply chain - manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, retailers and patients - benefit from
our solution. We continually refined our business model with these principles in mind and introduced
a Vendor Management Inventory (VMI) model in 2016. We created a network of healthcare providers
(hospitals and retail pharmacies) who subscribed to the model at no cost. For our VMI partners, we
took over end-to-end inventory management at their pharmacies - from procurement to withdrawal
of expired drugs. We provided inventory to our VMI partners on a consignment basis, so they could
free up working capital for business operations. Our technology infrastructure allowed us to receive
dispensation data which we could analyse for key insights into the healthcare sector in the countries
we operated in at the time namely, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zambia. As our network of VMI partners
grew, we were able to negotiate volume discounts with suppliers and manufacturers, which led to
cost savings (affordability) for the providers and, indirectly, for patients. By eliminating the
“middlemen” who were adding high markups along the chain, we were successfully driving down
drug prices.
10
Retail
VMI became our primary service offering, and we have served over 1,000 hospitals and retail
pharmacies under this model to date. However, VMI was not directly addressing affordability for
patients. We passed on cost savings to VMI partners but did not control the final price to patients.
Some of our partner pharmacies struggled with their operating expenses and as a result, transferred
their financial burdens to patients by increasing the prices of drugs. Because price regulation laws
are lax, this was easy for them to do. Additionally, these financial challenges meant that some
pharmacy owners were unable to maintain the physical appearance of their pharmacies; we were
constantly seeing leaking roofs, broken shelves, and other conditions that did not boost patients’
confidence in the services and drugs provided at these pharmacies. To help solve this, we introduced
the QualityRx program after a successful pilot in 2018. This program provides an innovative and
affordable financing solution for struggling mom-and-pop pharmacies with a history of high
performance. It also offers funding for refurbishment, inventory, and technology costs. By helping to
“revive” these pharmacies, we did not only expand our pharmacy network but, most importantly,
increased access to affordable healthcare. All our partner pharmacies in the QualityRx program and
the pharmacies we manage, operate under the umbrella of mPharma’s flagship brand, “mutti”. With
QualityRx, we have come a step closer to our goal of making medicines more affordable to patients
as we can directly control prices at all mutti pharmacies. Over time, we have rolled out primary
With the success of QualityRx in Ghana and Nigeria, we launched the model in Zambia in 2020. We
expanded our retail service offerings to other African countries through acquisitions and strategic
partnerships. We extended our footprint in Zambia and entered into Rwanda and Malawi through a
partnership with Mount Meru, a leading operator of gas stations across eastern and southern Africa
under the brand “Kumera”. In 2019, we acquired Haltons Pharmacy, the second-largest pharmacy
chain in Kenya. Post-acquisition, Haltons contributed 12% to our revenue in its first reporting month
alone. Our footprint in Kenya has since grown from the 17 pharmacies acquired to over 30
open Haltons Pharmacies and launch mutti in Ethiopia. We also acquired Vine Pharmaceuticals in
October 2021. Vine is the second largest pharmacy chain in the country and was operating 11
Diagnostics
by launching our Diagnostics Business Unit. We currently partner with over 40 private and public labs
to not only provide funding opportunities and equipment for Covid-19 testing but to build capacity
for testing other diseases such as cervical cancer (Human Papillomavirus testing).
Today, mPharma operates via three business units - Wholesale, Retail and Diagnostics - and five
support functions - Product and Engineering, Supply Chain, Finance, Human Capital, and Strategy
and Business Development. We will continue to grow our footprint across Africa as we roll out
innovative and affordable solutions for patients. To us, we only have one business model - the model
of solutions; one that prioritises patients and serves as the conscience of healthcare providers in a
11
Our Solutions for
Patients
12
Reimagining Healthcare Delivery in
Africa: Our QualityRx Program
In most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, patients often start their care journey at their local
community pharmacies through self-medication. In Ghana, 55% of patients opt for pharmacies
when they first experience symptoms while 23% opt for a clinic or hospital. In Nigeria, about
60%-90% of the population in the southern part of the country self-medicate (Oyelola et
al.,2010). Community pharmacies remain the first point of contact for middle and low-income
earners. Extended operating hours, short wait times, and the free consultation offered by
community pharmacists have made them central to delivering healthcare solutions to patients.
Through our retail business offerings, particularly the QualityRx conversion franchising model, we
can now directly influence not just the price of drugs, but also of healthcare services received by
patients in eight African countries. QualityRx is our channel for directly addressing affordability for
mutti patients; it is an asset-light model that allows us to scale our solutions quickly. For us,
community pharmacies are vital partners in delivering affordable and high quality primary
healthcare services. They also provide an excellent opportunity to gather data (using Bloom) that
can support various stakeholders in making critical decisions about the healthcare sector. Mutti
pharmacies benefit from up to $8,000 upfront financing which goes towards working capital, the
technology setup and refurbishment costs of the pharmacy, and ultimately leads to an improved
customer experience for patients.
Our investment in community pharmacies allows us to see the change we have always envisioned in
Africa’s healthcare industry. We are delighted by the smiles of patients leaving their Mutti Doctor
consultation room and the resurgent growth of struggling community pharmacies signed on to our
QualityRx model. The true impact of the care that mutti pharmacies provide to their communities is
immeasurable. Our commitment to helping them boost their revenues as well as their impact in the
communities they serve is one we take most seriously.
13
Reimagining Healthcare Delivery in
Africa: Our QualityRx Program
Pharmacists and Medicine Counter Assistants: we organise various training programs to help
continually upskill our pharmacy partners. We offer quarterly training programs in customer
service, soft skills, and pharmaceutical care to reinforce the skills, competencies, and tools
needed to serve customers better and to ensure that mutti pharmacies are the most trusted
pharmacies in the communities they serve.
Community Pharmacies: pharmacy owners who join our network are our most valuable partners
in our quest to build an Africa that is in good health. Several of our partners have been in the
retail business for over twenty years and bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the
partnership. We provide mutti pharmacies with innovative and affordable financing solutions at
no upfront cost. We renovate and rebrand these pharmacies to be fit as primary healthcare
centers, ready to serve a wide range of patients’ needs including doctor consults and rapid
diagnostics testing.
Governments: Bloom gives us access to data, which enables us to understand the disease
profiles in a community. The insights we generate can help governments and other key
stakeholders to make informed healthcare policy decisions.
14
Financial Results from Our QualityRx Partners
Table 1 shows peak monthly revenue of some pharmacies in our mutti network. These
pharmacies report up to 120% growth in peak revenue after joining the QualityRx program.
Pharmacies that join our network typically double their revenues within the first 12 months.
Table 1: Peak monthly revenue before and after joining the QualityRx Program.
Ghana
Nigeria
Kenya
Pharmacy 2 3,612
8,210
Southern Africa
Pharmacy 3 3,938
4,768
15
What our Partner Pharmacies
are saying about us
As a pharmacy owner, I faced several challenges, especially accessing adequate inventory for
my customers. By joining mPharma’s QualityRx program, I have been able to regularly stock up
[my pharmacy] and guarantee a wider range of products for my customers. mPharma was able
to support me to renovate my pharmacy. Now my pharmacy has a new look and is attractive to
existing and prospective customers. Through the support I have received from mPharma, I am
now also able to offer the community other primary care services such as the testing of
diabetes, blood sugar, body mass index, HIV, and malaria. Due to my expanded range of
services, most of my customers consider my facility as the first line of access to health services.
The health screenings the program offers have helped us build customer satisfaction and
retention. We have also benefited from different promotional activities, like offering free masks
to all our customers during the peak of Covid-19 infections in Ghana. Mutti membership offers
patients affordable medicines through its Diabetes Test and Treat program. We also provide
free malaria testing and treatment for children under the age of five, Hepatitis B screening and
vaccination, and Human Papillomavirus testing.
We were experiencing challenges operating our pharmacy. We did not have supplies readily
available. It was difficult for us to manage and finance supplies. Additionally, suppliers
constantly chased me for payments even when my stock had not been sold. QualityRx offered
me the opportunity to only pay for what I sell to patients. The program supports my pharmacy
by providing a system that helps manage my inventory and financing. The technology used to
track stock and sales has allowed me to monitor activities efficiently. Since joining the QualityRx
program, the sales we have recorded have been the best over the past five years. We have
recorded profits and paid staff salaries on time. QualityRx has taken away the financial stress;
it is indeed too good to be true.
Dr. Van-Esse | Dimples Pharmacy | Ghana
16
What our Partner Pharmacies
are saying about us
It has been a pleasure working with the team. I highly recommend the QualityRx program to
other businesses. Our pharmacy has seen a reduction in the lead time between ordering and
supply of drugs, better inventory management, and timely sharing of stock-taking reports.
The program has met every expectation, and my experience has been outstanding. It has been
my dream as a pharmacy owner to have a well-stocked facility with all the drugs available.
Since I joined the program, my customers have had the option of selecting a variety of
affordable medications. This range of offerings distinguishes my pharmacy from others in the
community. With affordable drugs in my pharmacy, I have retained clients and attracted more
patients.
As a business owner, I always had the vision to revamp my business into a model that would
attract more customers. When I heard about the QualityRx program, I knew that the innovative
partnership would support my pharmacy to be more attractive to patients and help my
business grow. The benefits of QualityRx were evident from the day we joined the program. The
quality of our practice and operations has improved tremendously. The pharmacy’s
refurbishment has given my business a great new look.
17
Supporting PPMVs: Introducing GoodHealth Shops
In Nigeria, Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors (PPMVs) are the first point of contact for
patients seeking healthcare solutions in most low and middle-income communities. They have a
reputation for providing care in areas such as maternal health and family planning, in addition to
sourcing over-the-counter medicines for their shops from a number of suppliers. In 2019, the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation approached mPharma to help address some of the challenges that
PPMVs and their communities faced in accessing quality and affordable medicines. Under the
GoodHealth brand, we ran a pilot to replicate the QualityRx model with PPMVs. We refurbished the
shops and provided inventory in line with the Pharmacist Council of Nigeria’s (PCN) approved
formulary (PPMVs in Nigeria are prohibited from dispensing prescription medications). In addition,
our partnership with the PPMVs helped us to create a software-managed inventory system via
Bloom to help them keep track of their inventory and predict stock-out challenges. Following the
success of the pilot with 20 shops, we began scaling and adding more GoodHealth shops to our
network. Our Mutti Doctor program has helped the GoodHealth shops to provide professional
clinical care services to their communities.
Since we launched the pilot, average monthly sales have significantly increased; some PPMVs have
more than tripled sales since their first full month of operation and average basket value has
increased by 80%, driven by Mutti member visits. The increase in sales has given some PPMVs the
financial capacity to start new businesses or expand their product list to include non-drug items.
The graph below shows actual revenues for PPMVs in the pilot and average basket value for
patients at these GoodHealth shops. Mutti members spend much higher than guest (walk-in)
customers in GoodHealth shops. We attribute this partly to members consolidating their spend at
their local GoodHealth shop.
- Member - Guest 1 2 3 4
N2,000 N800
PPMV Revenues, NGN (000s)
N1,500 N600
N1,000 N400
N500 N200
N0 N0
November December January February March April May June July August September October
18
Mutti: Our Health
Membership Club
19
Mutti: Our Health Membership Club
Mutti is more than just a loyalty program. As we continued to seek ways to further bring down the
cost of medicines for patients, it became clear that to truly drive this impact, a program that
prioritises our loyal customers and rewards them with loyalty discounts would be value-adding. To
further improve the experience for patients, we built mutti, our consumer-facing business solution in
2018. Mutti is a health membership club that has been designed to reduce the upfront financial
burden felt by ‘out-of-pocket’ or uninsured patients. Mutti offers patients discounts on their
prescription medications from their very first purchase. Mutti patients can unlock loyalty benefits
such as phased payments on prescription drugs, our “heal now, pay later” solution. Mutti members
earn loyalty points and can redeem their points as additional cashback discounts on their drug
purchases. Our enterprise version of Mutti for corporates and health insurance companies helps
them to manage medication spend for their members. Mutti patients can also buy directly from our
e-commerce platform, mymutti.com.
Drug Name Market Price Mutti Price Savings (GHS) Savings (%)
(GHS) (GHS)
Xarelto 15mg GHS 452 GHS 197 GHS 255 56%
GalvusMet
50mg/1000mg
GHS 312 GHS 226 GHS 86 28%
20
What mutti members are
saying about us
“The way the staff are concerned about my health is very nice; it
makes me feel loved, which did not happen when I was not with
mutti.”
“Mutti has helped me cut down the cost I spend on drugs, so I channel
my earnings from the discounts to something else or my savings.”
21
Patient Support Programs: Supporting Patients
with Chronic and Life-threatening Diseases
When we launched mutti, we knew that many of our members had a substantial financial burden
due to the recurring purchase of chronic medications. Our VMI pilot had already highlighted the
high cost of chronic medications for hypertensive and diabetic patients. In Sub-Saharan Africa,
disease occurrence is evolving, and chronic diseases are on the increase. As of 2019, the estimated
total adult population living with diabetes in Sub-Saharan Africa was over 15%, and the total
healthcare cost was over $9.5 billion (Zimmermann et al., 2018). Using our enterprise version of
mutti, we began working with big pharma companies to design market access programs for high
cost medications and disease management programs for patients on chronic medications. Mutti
has become a trusted partner in patient support programs (PSPs); 92% of our big pharma partners
highly recommend mPharma’s PSP service. Over the past three years, we have worked with global
drug manufacturers such as Roche, Sanofi, and Pfizer to design innovative financing solutions for
thousands of patients.
In 2020, we launched Diabetes Test & Treat (DTT) to serve as a broad umbrella program for all our
diabetes disease management programs. DTT is a subscription service for mutti members that
gives pre-diabetic and diabetic patients access to certified health coaches and budget savings on
the treatment journey - a free glucometer for at-home blood sugar monitoring, highly subsidised
test strips, lancets, one free glycated haemoglobin (HBA1c) test and access to educational
resources. These benefits are in addition to all other mutti membership benefits such as phased
payments and loyalty points when they purchase their drugs from mutti. Since the launch of DTT,
which currently runs in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya, we have provided diabetes coaching
to hundreds of mutti members; 80% of patients on DTT have achieved optimal glycaemic control
within six months of joining the program.
In 2021, we collaborated with Pfizer to launch a market access program in Nigeria dubbed “Project
Taksit”. The program covers several drugs from Pfizer's range of antibiotics and antifungal
medications used chiefly in critical care situations such as Meronem, Vfend, and Tygacil. Patients
on Taksit benefit from price discounts between 35% to 65% and get instant access to mutti's “heal
now, pay later” offering. The program has gained several accolades from beneficiaries. A patient
in Garki General Hospital where the program is popularly called "Mutti Meronem" had this to say:
"I'm a civil servant and it wouldn't have been possible for me to afford Meronem without this
program". Taksit has so far recorded huge success, surpassing all target metrics and leading to
further expansion of the product list by Pfizer. In December 2021, we launched Taksit in Ghana and
we are looking forward to expanding the program to more patients in other African markets.
We have served over 3,000 patients across Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya since we launched our
patient support programs. Our patients trust us to provide them with affordable drugs and support
them with managing their chronic or life threatening diseases such as breast cancer, through our
dedicated health coaching service.
22
What DTT Patients are
saying about us
I’m happy about this program and it is a very good one to know that
someone cares about your condition. It has helped very much. Close
monitoring and a healthy diet have helped on blood sugar levels and
23
Our Ratings from patients who have
graduated from Her-Radio PSP
24
Primary Healthcare Services - A
focus on Mutti Doctor
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, the doctor-to-patient ratio paints a bleak picture of the state of
healthcare in the region. Public health institutions across the continent struggle to offer quality care
due to long wait times, poor infrastructure, inadequate human resources and insufficient budget
allocation. This notwithstanding, the vast majority of citizens rely on these institutions for their
healthcare needs. With this context in mind, our primary care strategy focuses on filling these gaps
and offering patients an alternative pathway to good health. Our approach is rooted in advancing
the role of the community pharmacy as a healthcare provider. Mutti Doctor was one of the first
solutions we rolled out in 2021 to address this.
Mutti Doctor is our virtual doctor office service offered through mutti pharmacies. It enables doctors
to perform medical examinations remotely while providing timely virtual consultations to patients.
Mutti pharmacies offer this service to patients through an mPharma-sponsored clinical team of
doctors and nurses. Patients who walk into Mutti Doctor locations are able to:
Get access to a wide range of rapid diagnostic tests including H Pylori, cholesterol, HIV,
blood sugar, syphilis, hepatitis c, malaria, hemoglobin, pregnancy, prostate-specific
antigen (PSA) and hepatitis b surface antigen (HBsAg);
Fulfil all their prescriptions from the mutti pharmacy or through our delivery-only mutti
pharmcies as is the case with GoodHealth shops.
25
26
26
Impact in Numbers: Mutti Doctor
5,806
Consultations
In 2021, mPharma was selected
as part of the inaugural cohort
41,535
Community Health screening
for the Morgan Stanley
Sustainable Solutions Awards.
The award was presented to
560
five companies“with
breakthrough initiatives that
address systemic change to
Consultations for children
support sustainability”. We used
250
Primary care nurses
this grant award as seed
funding for the first cohort of
mutti doctor offices and our
vision is to open 200 mutti
25
Doctors
27
What our Patients are saying about
Mutti Doctor
Patient | Kenya
Patient | Kenya
28
Mutti Doctor Stories
mPharma's Mutti Doctor service is characterised by hundreds of stories involving hypertensives and
diabetics across the communities we serve. The impact stories from Mutti Doctor patients indicate
that community pharmacies have long been an essential first line of defense for many patients.
A client walked in with a perfectly normal outlook but had a BP reading of greater than
180/120mmHg, requiring urgent medical care. The client was quickly referred to a nearby medical
centre, and her BP normalised. The client and her husband remain grateful for the timely
intervention and continue to be ambassadors for the splendid services mutti pharmacies provide.
A 41-year-old woman who is a known hypertensive had defaulted on medication intake for 3
months. When mutti’s community health nurses screened her at home, she was immediately flagged
as needing additional checkups by a doctor. She showed up at a Mutti Doctor location and her BP
reading on arrival was 173/97 mmHg and her random sérum glucose of 15 millimoles per litre. She
complained about having constant headaches and palpitations. After consultation, she was
restarted on antihypertensives and started on antidiabetics. She continues to do daily BP and sérum
glucose monitoring at the pharmacy to date.
29
Our Initiatives to
Support Women &
Children
30
Our Initiatives to Support
Women & Children
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to over 250 million We targeted areas where access to affordable
women who contribute to more than 46% of the quality healthcare is a challenge such as the
labour force (NCBI, 2018; WorldBank, 2020). It Nzulezu village in the Western region of
goes without saying that addressing women's Ghana. We showcased that with the current
health issues has enormous implications for the mobile technologies available and with the
region's development. We have carefully right partners, we could screen every woman
designed programs for testing and treating of anywhere on the continent.
HPV Screening and Testing: The 10,000 In the course of our work, we discovered that
Women Campaign
HPV testing and education was low even
among women in corporate institutions in
Ghana. As a result, we began a self-sample
One of the most common causes of cancer collection program targeted at these women.
death among women in Sub-Saharan Africa is Our approach is to ensure that women,
cervical cancer. In Ghana, it is the second most regardless of economic standing, can receive
common cancer among women. Most the necessary support to screen, diagnose,
countries have been unable to take the lead in and treat HPV and cervical cancer. To expand
designing systems that can help with the access to testing and screening, we launched
education, vaccination, diagnosis, and “Sponsor a Woman” for individuals and
treatment of the disease. Without proper corporate institutions to assist in bearing the
measures, cervical cancer incidence and cost of treatment for each women who tests
mortality rates may continue to rise each year.
positive.
31
Our Initiatives to Support
Women & Children
Her2+ breast cancer is an aggressive disease with a high risk of recurrence. About 90% of breast
cancer patients in Africa pay out-of-pocket for their treatment. This limits the average number of
cycles completed by uninsured patients receiving Her2+ targeted therapy to 5 compared to 14 for
those with health insurance. Despite treatment with Herceptin and radiotherapy, an estimated 1 in 4
patients will experience disease recurrence or death. We designed Her-Radio, a collaboration
between mutti and Roche for Her2+ breast cancer treatment. The program offers eligible patients
phased payment plans and free radiotherapy for treatment with Herceptin. Patients enrolled in the
program save between 15% to 25% of their treatment costs and receive access to free coaching from
trained health coaches.
This program is currently being rolled out at the National Hospital of Abuja and the University of
Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu. Since its launch in September 2019, 55 patients have been enrolled
and 18 patients have successfully graduated from the program, completing all 18 vials of Herceptin.
Before the program launched, no patient had ever completed the treatment journey at the National
Hospital of Abuja. The successful implementation of the program as well as updated clinical guidance
on treatment has led to a spin-off program PHer-Radio, which covers the total cost of treatment with
Perjenta and Herceptin, and offers free radiotherapy and free surgery for eligible patients. We
continue to work with Roche and other pharma partners on designing innovative financing models to
relive the financial and mental burden for cancer patients across the continent.
32
The Nicholas Walker Malaria Program
Approximately 93% of all malaria cases and 94% of deaths recorded from Malaria in 2018 were from
Africa (WHO, 2021). In 2020, we launched the Nicholas Walker Malaria program to provide free testing
and treatment for uncomplicated malaria in children aged six months to five years. The primary
objective of this programme is to contribute our quota as an organisation to reducing the mortality
rates associated with malaria in children under the age of five. The programme further seeks to build
a ‘test before treatment’ culture to help curb resistance to antimalarials. The 2020 World Malaria
Report indicates that improved access to testing led to a gradual rise in the reported cases of malaria
in children under five, from 12% in 2016 to 33% in 2017.
The program, named in honour and memory of Nicholas Walker, celebrates his work as mPharma’s
first Global Head of Business Development. Nick helped shape the company’s mission of building an
Africa that is in good health and was instrumental in the strategic acquisitions of both Haltons
Pharmacy (Kenya) and Vine Pharmaceuticals (Uganda) for the company.
Childhood Malaria
116 Positive cases treated
33
Our Solutions for
Corporates, Hospitals,
Laboratories &
Governments
34
Reimagining Healthcare in Africa - Our Support
for Healthcare Providers
In most African countries, the pharmaceutical drug market is highly fragmented and poorly
regulated. This has increased the financial burden on healthcare providers and forced them to
reduce their drug purchases. Distributor prices for these drugs are high – often over 30% above the
pharmaceutical manufacturer’s Freight on Board (FoB) price. In addition, the lack of drug supply
chain expertise and investment creates a high level of irregularity in the availability of quality drugs,
and leads to over-stocking as well as other avoidable inventory-related costs. The result is a high cost
of drugs which is often transferred to the patients. Cognizant of this reality and how it impacts our
ability to serve patients, we designed solutions to solve the challenges healthcare providers face with
drug supply, inventory-related costs, counterfeit drugs, stockouts and overstocking. To help solve
these problems, we have invested in two solutions to improve the value of our offerings to our
customers:
_` Using technology to forecast accurately, reduce waste and improve delivery times
We observed that inadequate forecasting and poor technology contributed to the drug supply chain
inefficiencies which led to high drug prices. To remedy this, we use Bloom to deploy predictive
analytics and insights from the data generated from our operations, i.e historical consumption and
dispensation data, to forecast future demand. This allows us to stock drugs and prepare adequately
for future demand, ultimately ensuring a steady supply of inventory for our customers which helps
reduce the risk of stock-outs. Bloom helps us to aggregate drug consumption data that feeds into our
forecasting models and improves our forecast accuracy by over 40%. We have reduced our order-to-
delivery timelines by over 80% within the last two years and cut waste from product expiration by over
60% annually since 2020. Our Last Mile Delivery application (LMD) is fully automated to provide
added benefits to healthcare providers. These benefits range from our "track and trace" feature to
billing and effective route planning, to ensuring our partners are able to help patients get their life-
saving medicines on time.
35
Reimagining Healthcare in Africa - Our Support
for Healthcare Providers
VMI: we prefinance drugs and supply to our VMI partners on consignment; they only pay after
dispensing the drugs to patients. Over time, as dispensation data is aggregated, we are able to
forecast and take charge of stock replenishment, allowing mPharma to dynamically adjust inventory
levels in response to customer demand. VMI improves the overall supply chain responsiveness to
seasonal changes of our customers and also reduces the frequency of costly last-minute orders.
SOD: our sale-on-delivery (SOD) customers enjoy reduced cost of drugs in the form of discounts
received from suppliers based on aggregated demand volumes negotiated by the Wholesale team.
Tender: mPharma is able to successfully participate in tenders due to the volume discounts from our
wholesale business; as these tenders are mostly for public health institutions, patients are likely to be
the ultimate beneficiaries of the discounted prices.
Using these three service offerings, we have been able to increase the availability, accessibility and
affordability of drugs, thereby improving the quality and outcomes of healthcare delivery.
36
What our Partners are
saying about us
It has been three years since we enrolled on the VMI model and I see our partnership growing
each day. When mPharma came to us, we were recovering financially as a hospital. Our revenue
was low but after we signed up to their model, we saw a growth in the revenue. It was such a
positive change and its outcome was evident. Aside from helping us increase our revenue,
mPharma also refurbished our maternity ward as part of their corporate social responsibility.
Today, even when patients can afford the private ward, they still choose the general ward
refurbished by mPharma. Having an organisation like mPharma is very important for the
healthcare industry. I am excited about our partnership.
We were used to start-ups scaling slowly and sometimes fading out of the system. So when
mPharma came into the healthcare industry, we were a little worried. I wondered how long they
would stay. I assumed that they were going to struggle because of their model. But interestingly,
their model has become their strength. I am excited to see mPharma grow more strongly despite
the competitive nature of the market. Their quest to provide value is their driving force and I like
their QualityRx and VMI models. It is an exciting model in the healthcare space and we look
forward to having a sustainable relationship with them.
37
Applying Our Solutions to Support Governments:
Our Parnership with the Government of Gabon
The success of our proprietary software application, Bloom, in helping to achieve affordability,
availability and accessibility to medicines, as well as cutting waste in the drug supply chain became
the winning ticket in our first public-private partnership. Our technology solutions can help to
eliminate fraud in public insurance schemes and guarantee supply chain security by eliminating the
proliferation of counterfeit medicines. In 2021, we signed a contract to serve as technical advisor to the
government of Gabon. We helped deploy two technology solutions to support the government’s
operations of its central medical stores: a Systems Application and Products (SAP) in data Processing
for business operations and Bloom - in French - for pharmacy operations.
Our technical partnership with the Government of Gabon has transformed a once-moribund
medicines distribution infrastructure into a technology-enabled, process-mature, and efficient
parastatal that will bring value to the citizens of Gabon. It will ensure that the government can
respond quickly to healthcare-related challenges whilst planning effectively to keep their citizens in
good health.
38
Building in the midst of a pandemic: enhancing
Africa’s molecular diagnostics capacity
When the pandemic broke out in 2020, it was evident that the speed of testing would be critical in
curbing its impact on individuals and businesses. However, only a handful of countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa had molecular labs that could conduct the PCR tests required for detecting the virus. The
pandemic exposed how long molecular labs have suffered from underfunding. We knew that with the
right investment and strategy, we could support both the public and private sectors to conduct mass
testing to help inform policy and operational decisions that would save lives.
Through our partnership with Sansure Biotech, we were able to procure equipment and test kits in
response to the pandemic. We secured over 1 million test kits and 150 PCR equipment and distributed
them across eight countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Our intervention eliminated the stress that already overstretched government facilities had to go
through to test several thousands of samples each day. Due to the decentralisation of testing centres,
we saw tremendous results in testing during the second wave of the pandemic. Over 60% of the
Covid-19 tests conducted in Ghana in 2020 was done in our partner laboratories. The previously over-
burdened research facilities could now intensify research on SARS-CoV-2.
The business operations of our diagnostics partners made a considerable impact in Ghana, Nigeria,
and Zambia. While Covid-19 has been our stimulus, we are now leveraging the infrastructure we setup
with our partners to introduce other molecular diagnostics tests, including Hepatitis B virus (HBV),
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and Human Papillomavirus (HPV).
To ensure that our solution is sustainable and can serve more countries on the continent, our
Diagnostics Business Unit bears the cost of the equipment and personnel training necessary for
carrying out the tests. The success of the $3 million molecular diagnostics fund with Standard
Chartered bank in helping to boost the testing capacity of our lab partners showed that public-private
partnerships in the healthcare industry can create mutual value.
39
Our Technology
40
Dan Shoukimas
Co-founder | Chief Product Officer
41
Using Technology to Scale Healthcare
Transformation in Africa
The future of mPharma is Bloom. In our work with community pharmacies, we unearthed data that we
could tap into to help stakeholders in the public and private sectors make informed policy and
healthcare related decisions. The ever-increasing health needs of patients require that pharmaceutical
and other health solutions are built on accessible and user-friendly technology. So, as a healthcare
technology company that thrives on using accurate data to make healthcare decisions, we launched
Bloom in 2020, as the go-to operating system for community pharmacies in Africa.
Bloom enables us to improve operational efficiency among pharmacies by collecting user information
for predictive analysis. The data we analyse includes our customers’ disease profile, drug purchases,
inventory management, and the market size of the communities that our partner pharmacies operate
in. Bloom now operates in over 250 pharmacies across Sub-Saharan Africa. Since its launch, Bloom
has helped us with POS inventory management, tracking treatment outcomes of children in our
Nicholas Walker Malaria program, deploying lab tests and results for Covid-19 tests, and helping to
track health data of diabetic patients.
With the insights gained from Bloom, we built our Diabetes Test & Treat (DTT) application specifically
for mutti members. Today, diabetic patients can use the application to track their blood sugar readings
and keep in touch with their designated diabetes health coach.
By the end of 2021, we launched two solutions for our members - the DTT app and our digital solution
in healthcare, mymutti.com - to increase access to quality and affordable healthcare. With this new
mutti experience, we can reach patients across all our markets. Mutti is bringing our life-saving
services even closer to where our members live and work. The DTT app and our Bloom POS
demonstrate our technology's power to provide linear care for our members. Each sale made via
Bloom in any mutti pharmacy marks a milestone for us in treating a patient. Bloom enables us to
provide linear care to patients immediately after seeing a nurse at any of our regular health
screenings.
While we undertook many Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) deployments and integrations over the
year, our Last-Mile Delivery (LMD) solution was the most exciting work we released. It is a core
component of Bloom’s Warehouse and Live Inventory Ordering features. Using Live Inventory Ordering,
facilities can see what stock is available in real-time. This way, they can trust that the items they order
from mPharma will be delivered promptly. The LMD application enables facility owners to track their
order status from when the orders are received by our warehouse team to when the driver makes the
delivery. These tools are essential in building trust and delivering value for our Wholesale and Retail
customers.
42
Our People
43
Our People
At mPharma, we believe that our biggest asset is our human capital. We bring onboard passionate
and high-potential talents who join our high performing team to curate and deploy innovative health
solutions for Africa's health challenges. In less than nine years, we have grown from a small team of
co-founders to a team of over 500 employees.
We are among the few companies in Africa that offer stock options to employees. We invest in the
training of our employees to equip them with the necessary skills to excel in any corporate
environment. We prioritise internal promotions which helps to boost employee morale and
commitment to our vision. Our employees can see a promising future at the company because we aim
to chart a career path for each employee.
With a continental presence, we understand the importance of representation, which is reflective in the
composition of our team across the countries we operate in. For us, diversity is a function of presence of
multi-ethnic groups, gender and the variety of opportunities available to members of the company.
Over 45% of our team is female and this permeates all levels of the company.
44
Our People
Our team boasts of highly skilled individuals with varied backgrounds in business, healthcare and
entrepreneurship. In 2021 alone, we recruited over 200 contractors, interns and experienced hires.
When we hire, our mantra is to hire talented individuals with the potential to be the firm’s future
leaders and who will be responsible for bringing our vision and commitment to improving the
healthcare industry in Africa.
We consistently invest in training opportunities for our employees. An example is our partnership with
Harvard Business School’s e-learning portal (Harvard Managementor) which grants our employees
access to a pool of business skills to learn from. Our people recorded over 1,400 hours of learning
across several e-learning platforms in 2021.
Our employees include alumni of Africa's top academic institutions as well as alumni of the following
prestigious global academic and business institutions:
45
Our People
74 Pharmacists 99 Kenya
43 Uganda
13 Rwanda
4 Malawi
2 Gabon
46
Stories of Veteran Employees
My work at mPharma was filled with I joined when the company only had about 50
memorable impact stories. On some days, I employees. Seeing that number grow to over
was helping one of the largest hospital 500 staff today, with many different
facilities in Nigeria save money by departments gives me a sense of pride. As
switching to our flagship VMI model. On our staff numbers increased in Zambia, so did
other days, I was engaging big pharma our impact and the dynamism of our product
partners to create and implement offerings. I have witnessed mPharma grow
innovative patient support programs for and change strategies over the years.
hundreds of patients. The most memorable Personally, I have developed my leadership
experience was saving a critically ill baby’s skills significantly through my line managers'
life in faraway Eastern Nigeria by providing trust in me. My work has not been hampered
the father with access to medicines on our by micromanagement. The room to work and
Taksit program with Pfizer. As a healthtech explore my creativity comes with the
company, we pursue growth while psychological safety to make mistakes and
prioritising the needs of the people we learn from them. Senior managers, including
work with and the patients we serve. If you the CEO, have always been accessible for
asked me to describe mPharma in a consultation. I love that everyone can express
nutshell, I would say: “Think of the Amazon themselves without the fear of being
for Healthcare in Africa.”
victimised. The impact I am most proud of
was helping to procure a drug that was not
Ugonna Onuoha | 6 years | Nigeria available in Africa to treat a child in one of
the hospitals in Zambia. I quickly reached out
to Greg, who put me in touch with suppliers in
Poland. We faced many challenges getting
the product into the country as most suppliers
refused to ship to Africa. Nonetheless, the
support of Greg and the Country Managing
Director made it possible to get the drug into
the country so the child could receive
treatment. Saving that child’s life is one of my
most fulfilling experiences to date.
47
Our Leadership Team
48
About mPharma
linkedin.com/company/mpharma
49
© 2022. For information contact mPharma at [email protected]