It is 18-year-old Arjun Deshpande’s first funding for his fledgeling pharmaceutical venture Generic Aadhaar. And the funding has come from “Ratan sir”, says Arjun, on Ratan Tata’s investment into the venture in a personal capacity.
Founded two years ago by Arjun to make medicines affordable to people, Generic Aadhaar sources less expensive, but quality generic drugs from four contract manufacturers and supplies them sans the distribution and retail margins to a network of about 30 retail chemists across Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Odisha. Having started with money from his parents, the start-up now has an annual revenue of about ₹6 crore.
Since his meeting with Ratan Tata about four months ago to explain his venture, Arjun has met him as many times and even been advised by him. “His advice was to also focus on oncology medicines,“ says Arjun, to help bring down the price of drugs for cancer patients. For this, Arjun says, they are sourcing drugs from a producer in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. Details of Mr Tata’s investment have not been disclosed, though Business Line did reach out his office for a comment.
Recalling his meeting with Mr Tata, Arjun says he was also confident that the businessman-philanthropist would appreciate the venture since he shared the aim to make medicines and healthcare affordable to more people in the country. Arjun says, his venture aims to bring down the price of medicines for patients and empower retail chemists who are getting affected by the increasing acceptance of online pharmacies.
Generic Aadhaar sources its medicines from manufacturers aligned to the World Health Organisation’s Good Manufacturing Practices norms, located in Palghar, Ahmedabad, Pondicherry and Nagpur. And its medicines are about 20-30 percent less than the market price and upto 80 percent less than the original brand’s price, he said.
Having juggled school and an entrepreneurial venture, Arjun has a hectic agenda ahead of him. The next few months will see the retail network expand to about 300 – 400 chemists in other states as well, besides the launch of a mobile application to network retail chemists with customers in the vicinity.
Generic Aadhaar’s has a profit-sharing model with chemists on the generic aggregator network. And in three-odd years, he expects revenues of about Rs 150- 200 crore.
The larger plan is to spread across 1000 pharmacies in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, New Delhi, Goa and Rajasthan. Generic Aadhaar will provide the support, technology and branding , for example, with its team of 55 employees. And the association with Mr Tata will help the startup “spread its wings” to every city in the country, the company said.