Goodlife Pharmacy Ltd was founded in 2014 with the purchase of five Mimosa Pharmacies and with additional funding from Catalyst investment group and IFC expanded to 19 stores covering the key cities of Kenya, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, with two stores in Uganda. Leapfrog Investments, an investment group that looks for investments that “change lives at scale,” saw the opportunity to create an East African Pharmacy chain providing easier and superior health care to all communities, and so acquired a majority share in 2016. The vision was to make people look and feel better one person at a time, by providing consistent and superior health care nationwide.
They were bold in their strategy to establish the chain,” says Justin Melvin, Goodlife’s COO. “They provided the funding to accelerate store expansion to 96 outlets by 2021. They developed three store formats that shared a common look and feel. This included large stores in major shopping malls, medium-sized stores in convenience shopping centres, and smaller express stores in local communities. We have now grown to 130 stores, including a further six stores in Uganda.”
The reason to create such an extensive network of pharmacies was a straight-forward one.
“We did this because we saw the opportunity to provide East African communities a much better pharmacy service than they had at the time,” Melvin tells us. “We wanted to offer them clean, well-lit pharmacies with a wide range of Pharma, OTC and personal care products supported by professional, well-trained staff and health care services. For this reason, we provided consult rooms in all our stores. That was our unique proposition: The same level of service and professionalism in every store no matter what community we were catering to. Building a large regional chain also gave us the ability to leverage suppliers for better pricing, allowing us to lower the cost to the patient.”
Today, Goodlife Pharmacy Ltd have coverage of the whole of Kenya, as well as eight stores in Kampala Uganda. The chain is the only pharmacy company in Kenya to provide truly national coverage, and with that coverage comes a better ability to serve its customers.
“We have also added online digital and WhatsApp delivery services. By leveraging the country-wide network, we can guarantee delivery to anywhere in Kenya in under three hours,” Melvin says. “You can call the store, order non-pharmaceutical products online, or contact us via WhatsApp. Our WhatsApp service is manned by Pharmacists who can manage patient prescriptions and provide expert advice. We also provide vaccination services at low prices. Simply book through our WhatsApp number. We started our online and delivery services in early 2022 and now they make up 10% of our sales volume.”
Goodlife has also started a membership club that provides unique benefits for all members.
“If you sign up for membership you get automatic discounts anywhere in the country, in any Goodlife store,” Melvin says. “Membership also provides free wellness checks. Staff can check glucose levels, body mass index, and blood pressure in the store, prescribing treatments or advising patients to see a doctor if necessary, all in the privacy of our consult rooms.”
The pharmacies also have in-house skincare specialists, beauticians, and nutritionists at its big stores.
“You can get advice on skin care as well as nutrition advice,” Melvin says. “For stores that do not have an in-house Nutritionist or Skin specialist, patients can be linked by WhatsApp and get advice remotely. That is a unique offering.”
Bringing Healthcare Online
Goodlife has also added HealthX, an online doctor service that allows patients to consult via video call, chat or audio call and get advice and prescriptions straight away.
As part of their unique service offering and focus on all round health and wellness, Health X has a psychologist and nutritionist available on the platform for the customers.
“That comes at a third of the price of going to the doctor and saves an awful lot of time,” Melvin points out. “Most Kenyans have to go to the hospital to see a doctor, they do not have a family doctor. With our HealthX service, once you make an initial call a doctor is assigned to you. HealthX has helped put offers in place such as 3,000 shillings a year for unlimited consultancy, compared to 1500 shillings for a single visit, so it is a very good deal.”
Bringing people into the scheme is the next challenge. It is a relatively new service, and old habits die hard, but word is getting out.
“Bit by bit by bit people are realising the benefits,” says Melvin. “Anyone who uses it comes back with good feedback.”
Goodlife Pharmacy has also partnered with the biggest pathology company in Kenya, PathCare. Twenty of our stores now have pathology services. Results are normally back to the patient and doctor within 12 hours. This saves patients a lot of time as typically getting to a lab to get tested can often take all day. Providing these services further enhances Goodlife as a health hub.
“We spend a lot of time engaging with the local communities. Every store has an outreach program that they manage themselves,” says Melvin. “We set up a tent and provide free wellness tests. Normally at least one per month per store. We also attend local events and provide the same services. Often, we will provide a doctor on hand to immediately provide health advice or prescriptions if needed.”
That mission has also led Goodlife to open a store in Kakuma, the largest refugee camp in East Africa, in Northern Kenya.
“We received funding from IFC for this endeavour,” says Melvin. “We have built the pharmacy there to the same standards as Nairobi, providing quality healthcare for the refugees and the NGO camps.”
Keeping Stock
While Goodlife provides an excellent range of services, as a pharmacy the company’s customers depend on it to keep the products and medicines they need in stock. Consistency of supply has proven a challenge not just for Goodlife, but for the entire industry in the post-Covid world. It is a challenge Goodlife has been proactive in engaging with.
“We go to the suppliers, manufacturers & distributors and provide them with a year’s forecast,” Melvin explains. “We were the first pharmacy to do so. Based on these forecasts we then go to tender to endeavour to get consistent supply and the best price.”
Goodlife also assigns two or three fallback suppliers to use in case of shortages.
“Our suppliers will also give us warning if they see a potential shortage allowing us to stock up and hold the product in our warehouse,” Melvin says. “We have established weekly orders to our suppliers based on live stock in the stores. Every item has a minimum stock level that automatically triggers an order. This is constantly updated. If there is an out-of-stock situation we will react quickly to find an alternative product. We have built a reputation with consumers. If you cannot get it elsewhere you will find it at Goodlife.”
The company aims to have opened 250 stores by 2025, from its current number of 130. Growth in Uganda is also set to continue, but for now, Kenya is the focus point.
Looking forward, Melvin says the pharmacy’s key focus is to broaden its network and service offering while building its health hub concept.
“We are trying to establish the health hub concept as much as possible,” Melvin says. “Last year we introduced the Wellness 360 program, for chronic patients. We monitor them to make sure they get checks at the right time, make sure their drugs are delivered on time, and obviously, we connect them with online services at the doctor, with discounts.”
