Sri Lanka’s first online pharmacy ‘healthnetbuy’ goes live

Sri Lanka’s first online pharmacy ‘healthnetbuy.com’ has gone live after running a successful pilot project, addressing a void in the country’s healthcare space.

The website allows patients or their families to obtain prescription medicines through a few simple steps at the convenience of your home.

Founder partners Deeshana Basnayaka and Rangika Wijesinghe say ‘healthnetbuy.com’ is a result of recognising a void in the pharmaceutical industry which cannot be fulfilled by conventional pharmacies.

“As regular consumers we keep on seeing how patients or their families would need to stay in long queues to obtain prescribed medicine. We would also see how most pharmacies do not stock all the brands prescribed by doctors, so patients would have to visit several pharmacies to complete one prescription. There were also instances where pharmacy owners would push alternate brands to what is prescribed, and patients not wanting to take the risk. Sometimes medicine is just so rare that people would travel miles to obtain them. Many we knew had gone through at least one of these issues and we wanted to find a solution that best suited everyone,” said Basnayaka.

Established in 2016, ‘healthnetbuy. com’ first ran a pilot project on their website www.healthnetbuy.com where customers would place their orders via the dedicated hotline 0117 791791 or the website itself.

Today, the process has further advanced to allow users to send an image of the prescription via Whatsapp or Viber.

The medicines would then be packed with the correct indication of dosage, timing and other precautions, before being delivered to the specified address (home, office or hospital) in a special container.

To ensure that the correct medicines are delivered ‘healthnetbuy.com’ only used qualified pharmacists to deliver medication and go a step further to educate and instruct patients on the storage, timings and dosages of the medicines being delivered.

Medicines that require temperature control are delivered accordingly to ensure efficacy of the drugs. With its own state-of-the-art storage facility in Colombo 05, ‘healthnetbuy.com’ operates everyday, except Poya holidays, and guarantees prescription delivery within two to four hours of placing the order.

Signing up with ‘healthnetbuy. com’ is completely free, and delivery within a 20 kilometre radius is also free for prescriptions above Rs.5,000. For prescriptions below this amount a nominal delivery fee of between Rs.150rs.250 is charged.

Deliveries are currently limited to the Colombo district, but the company has plans to expand their fleet to the entire Western Province shortly and subsequently for the rest of the island.