£7m support is tonic for online pharmacy
AN ONLINE pharmacy has secured £7 million of investment from the Business Growth Fund and other shareholders to support the rapid growth of its home delivery repeat prescription service for NHS patients.
The funding comes ten months after Pharmacy2u secured a £10 million growth capital investment from the BGF – which provides growth capital to small and medium enterprises – when it merged with Chemist.co.uk. Based in Leeds, Pharmacy2u dispenses up to 700,000 prescription items a month.
As well as its prescription service, it offers clinical advice and assistance with medication management from pharmacists. It aims to capitalise on the Department of Health’s push to drive cost efficiencies throughout the pharmacy sector.
It was launched by pharmacist Daniel Lee in 1999 and was involved in developing the NHS electronic prescription service, assisting in the NHS’s first pilot programme in 2001. Now it is the largest NHS contracted online pharmacy.
Chemist.co.uk was launched in 2007 and sells over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and health supplements, toiletries, baby products and pet health goods.
Chief executive Mark Livingstone, who co-founded LoveFilm and is a former Lego executive, said: ‘With BGF’s investment we were able to successfully merge two of the UK’s leading online pharmacists. The BGF has provided us with counsel throughout the year and we are delighted to have secured further investment from it and other shareholders.’
He said the business was ‘pioneering the most cost effective digital pharmacy service we can’.
BGF, which was established in 2011 to help Britain’s SMEs, is backed by five of the UK’s main banking groups – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered.