Breathing New Life into the African Pharmacy
Bryan Mezue, CEO of Nigerian-based Lifestores, is using his digital platform to turn local drug stores into community hubs for connected, wrap-around care.
By Michael Yockel Photos by Niyi Fagbemi
Typically, in the U.S., a person patronizes a drugstore to purchase diapers, snacks, cosmetics, greeting cards, laundry detergent, some other sundry, or an over-the-counter medication. And, occasionally, he or she might pick up a prescription. By contrast, in Nigeria, a person visits a drugstore principally to address a healthcare concern. There, the pharmacist will not only fill a prescription, but can actually write that same prescription after a brief consultation with the individual.
Nigerian pharmacists enjoy an elevated role, performing some of the functions ordinarily associated with physicians. “Nigerians see the pharmacy as a first port of call for health- care,” notes Bryan Mezue, CEO and co-founder of Lagos-based Lifestores Pharmacy, a dual physical/virtual pharmacy company. “Our pharmacies have a lot more power than those in more developed countries.”
With an estimated 200 million people, Nigeria boasts Africa’s largest population, with an annual increase of approximately 5.5 million. It also claims Africa’s highest GDP: around $500 billion. But like many African nations, Nigeria suffers from a lack of adequate healthcare infrastructure, with limited access to doctors, especially in rural and low-income urban areas. Nigerians also experience alarming rates of hypertension and diabetes, and less than five percent have health insurance. Those circumstances made for something of a perfect storm for Lifestores to launch in 2017.
“Pharmacies were a natural place for us to get started in order to tackle the healthcare challenges the country faces,” says Mezue, 33, a native Nigerian who earned his MBA at Harvard. A “natural place” also because of the fragmented nature of the nation’s pharmacy industry, where, combined, the two largest chains account for only two percent of the market. (Compare that to the U.S., where, together, CVS and Walgreens control more than 40 percent of pharmacies.)
With three existing bricks-and-mortar pharmacies in Lagos — and two more on tap by the end of 2019 — Lifestores is part of the burgeoning African-wide mHealth industry, whereby mobile phones and the internet play an increasingly important role in delivering healthcare.
Accordingly, one of the firm’s pharmacies is located in Lagos’ British colonial-era Yaba neighborhood, home to a hive of tech startups and, as a result, dubbed “Yabacon Valley.” At nearby Victoria Island’s Vestar Coffee, a popular venue with tech entrepreneurs, Mezue and Lifestores COO and co-founder Andrew Garza, a 35-year-old born in New Jersey who earned his MBA at Stanford, frequently brainstorm and strategize with core members of their team. The majority of the company’s 21 full-time employees are women, as is a significant portion of its management team and investor base.
“The key thing that distinguishes us is that we have a combination of an offline model and a technology-driven online model,” explains Mezue. “A lot of the competition either tries to go purely tech-driven — for example, in the e-commerce space — and have struggled, while much of the old guard do only bricks-and-mortar pharmacies.”
Lifestores’ online model markets a software package of what Mezue terms “value-added services” to non-Lifestores pharmacies or “affiliates.” These services help manage a pharmacy’s daily operations: affording greater efficiency in ordering medications from a supplier by tracking inventory levels; improving the quality of pharmacist education, including increased knowledge of medications and advising patients on using them safely; assisting customers/patients with their health-care regimen via an online system that not only records their prescription history but also notifies them when they require refills; and offering VIVA, a current Lifestores’ program that affords telephonic counseling for people who suffer from chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes and is available separately to third-party healthcare providers. Such wrap-around services reduced participants’ blood pressure by 15 percent in three months in a recent VIVA study.
As for growth, Lifestores plans to expand both its online and offline divisions. “We think it’s helpful to serve our customers fully, from end-to-end,” Mezue says. That means gradually opening more bricks-and-mortar pharmacies, while keeping vigilant not to compete with affiliates. In addition to Lifestores pharmacists continuing to consult with patients and maintaining its practice of hosting visiting hours for outside professional MDs, the company is exploring furnishing in-store telemedicine capability that links customers with physicians.
Over time, Lifestores hopes to expand to other African nations. “Access is not just a Lagos problem. It’s a Nigerian problem and it’s an African problem,” says Mezue.“There is an appetite for digital services, especially through mobile phones. We see lots of opportunities to use data to provide more standardized and consolidated services.”
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