The Ahmedabad-based Dialforhealth India Ltd (DFH), a wholly owned subsidiary of Zydus Cadila, is working on a plan to have a chain of 1000 plus franchisee network soon. The company is actively seeking strategic partnership from all over the country for this venture.

Dialforhealth's franchise initiative, launched last year, has today 30 franchisees in its network. The chain has eight pharmacies in Mumbai and one in Pune. The franchise network is spread across the western suburb of Mumbai and Thane thus giving a significant presence in the retail healthcare sector in the suburbs.

According to VK Sharma, GM-Operations, Dialforhealth, organized Pharma retailing is ready to take off in India and the Indian healthcare retail market offers several opportunities. Little surprise then that people are entering the organized healthcare-retailing segment to tap the Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) combined health and beauty retail market. Of this, the retail pharmacy segment is Rs 16,000 crore (Rs 160 billion). According to healthcare industry estimates, the total private expenditure on health is increasing by 27 per cent per annum.

Customers benefit from services like free home delivery, auto refills - wherein chronic patients who have to take regular medicines need not worry about running out of their essential medicines. The software at the retail outlet keeps a track of the customer's requirement and the same is home delivered to the customer after validating the prescription at no extra cost. The pharmacist at the store is trained to educate the customer on medicine dosage and do's and don'ts making medication compliance easy for the patients. The DFH pharmacies also provide services like detailed information on customer queries pertaining to healthcare needs and also arrange for appointments with doctors on request.

Under its care programme, DFH conducts various health check up camps at regular intervals for its customers wherein various health parameters like Diabetes, Hypertension, Dental, Asthma, Bone Density, and other vital parameters are checked.

Sharma added, franchisee retail business has been very successful in countries like the US, Australia and India is gradually turning to it. The company believes that organized Pharma retail is presently in a nascent stage and this sector will witness a major boom in the coming years. The potential in this sector is just phenomenal.