20,000 Reasons to Celebrate
Some History
We began our journey with a plan to build a database of drug availability by linking the inventory systems of pharmacies to an electronic prescription application for physicians. Through this infrastructure, we were able to track how and when patients got their medications. We realized that rising drug prices due to inefficiencies in the supply chain and uncapped profit margins made it difficult for payers to forecast their drug spend.
We decided to expand our focus to include managing drug prices for patients, providers and payers. Our formula for doing this was simple
- Aggregate the purchasing power of payers and centralize procurement
- Use our aggregated buying power to negotiate lower drug prices from suppliers
- Provide the medications as consignment stock to the providers to eliminate their inventory risk and improve their cash flow
- Cap the reimbursement price
We partnered with Novartis in April last year to launch a pilot for patients with diabetes and hypertension at the University Hospital in Ghana. We started with 4 drugs and expanded it to 188 drugs in November. Due to the success of this pilot, we were contracted by Hygeia HMO (the largest private health insurer in Nigeria) to manage drug benefits for their diabetes, hypertension and glaucoma patients. We went live at Lagoon Hospitals on November 14, 2016.
Why we’re celebrating
Today, we crossed over 20,000 dispensations to more than 5000 diabetes and hypertension patients across 10 hospitals. This is just the beginning. The top 10 dispensed drugs to our patients are:
- Amlodipine (Hypertension)
- Atorvastatin (Hypertension)
- Losartan (Hypertension)
- Hydrochlorthiazide (Hypertension)
- Metformin (Diabetes)
- Galvus Met (Diabetes)
- Aspirin
- Nifedipine (Hypertensi0n)
- Crestor (Hypercholesterolemia)
- Exforge (Hypertension)
The road ahead
Our plan is to expand into a full service pharmacy benefits manager. This means mPharma will cover every disease and drug. We will work with more payers to enter new markets with the goal of enrolling one million patients by 2020. At mPharma, our day begins and ends with the patient at the center of all our decision making. No patient will ever be denied access to the medications they need if it is covered by mPharma. This is the mPharma commitment.
Onwards!!!
