E-pharmacy firm 1mg says investing in cold chain, training staff for COVID-19 vaccination

Prashant Tandon, CEO, 1mg

India's leading e-pharmacy company 1mg said it is investing in expansion of its cold chain, training thousands of vaccinators and is in touch with vaccine makers for possible partnerships to participate in COVID-19 vaccination, as and when the government allows the private sector.

"We are waiting to get some clarity from the government as to when and how the private sector can participate, at 1mg we are keen to participate," said Prashant Tandon, CEO of 1mg to Moneycontrol.

Tandon said 1mg has put in place four key things like information about the vaccine, administration, supply chain and doctor consultation for successful rollout COVID-19 vaccination.

"We do vaccinations for flu shots, pneumococcal vaccine and hepatitis-B, we have the expertise, so what we are doing now is we are investing in setting up a cold chain for vaccine supplies, currently we have 500 trained technicians who can administer the vaccine, we are training network of 5,000 to 10,000 vaccinators, we are in touch with a bunch of vaccine manufacturers for possible tie-ups," Tandon said.

To be sure the government hasn't given any indication of allowing private sector participation in the COVID-19 vaccination drive. The government plans to vaccinate three crore healthcare and frontline workers in the initial phase of the vaccination drive.

In Budget 2021, the government allocated Rs 30,000 crore for vaccinating at least 50 crore people, suggesting the vaccination rollout would be led by the government.

India has approved the Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for vaccination.

It isn't 1mg alone, other private sector players such as Apollo Hospitals, Portea Medical, Medlife, Reliance-Netmeds, Pharmeasy among others have evinced interest to be part of COVID-19 vaccination, but are awaiting more clarity from the government.

An earlier EY-FICCI survey estimates that India may need 1.3 lakh-1.4 lakh vaccination centres, a lakh healthcare professionals (as inoculators) and two lakh support staff for mass-inoculation of prioritized 30 crore people as identified by the government, includes healthcare professionals, frontline workers, people above 50 years and also people with comorbidities by August 2021 and the entire adult population of 80 crore by the end of 2022. The survey says the government would need to allocate 60 percent of the existing public health infrastructure for vaccination, impacting the routine healthcare needs.

FICCI has been suggesting a hybrid model involving resource sharing between public and private players.

Fundraising

On funding raise plans, Tandon said the company is evaluating various "options and the intention is to grow big".

Earlier, there were reports about the Tata group and private equity firm Gaja Capital and World Bank arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) are among those in talks with 1mg to invest a total of at least $100 million in the e-pharmacy firm.

With over 37 million app downloads, 345 million monthly page views and over 160 million annual unique users visiting the platform in 12 months, 1mg has become a leading player in the digital healthcare space with presence across e-pharmacy, e-diagnostics and telemedicine services.