MedPlus Health Services, a Hyderabad based pharmaceutical product Distribution Company, that supplies exclusively to the MedPlus full-service pharmacies, announced the receipt of Rs 23 crore from iLabs. Operating out of Hyderabad and Chennai, iLabs currently manages approximately $300 million of funds.

The fund will be utilized to expand MedPlus' operations across South India. This will also facilitate the expansion of retail pharmacies through its partner company Optival Health Solutions. Currently, MedPlus is into retailing of both prescription and OTC medicines.

Disclosing this at a media conference, Dr Madhukar Gangadi, CEO, MedPlus said 'in the first phase, MedPlus had successfully developed a highly efficient distribution platform that enabled the launch of 100 stores to distribute trusted medicines at a low price to customers. This investment from iLabs would provide more people in both urban and rural markets easy access to genuine medicines. The funding would be used for the MedPlus footprint expansion, marketing, and launch of new services.

He said, MedPlus had developed a kind of advanced training centre to ensure best pharmacists and pharmacy aides in the industry. Its training facility would contain formal classroom areas as well as mini-MedPlus outlets to provide practical experience to students. Upon graduation, pharmacists and pharmacy aides would possess both superior customer service skills and product knowledge, turning them into a valuable resource to consumers.

"MedPlus is well on its way to becoming India's largest pharmaceutical product distribution and value added health services company. Their success in their first full year of operations has surpassed all expectations and we look forward to a very bright future for the company" said Rajesh Raju, director, iLabs. It helps build fundamentally stronger and better companies through its extensive operating and entrepreneurial experience. The company has focused on the domains of technology, media and entertainment and consumer services in its previous investments, Raju added.

'With the iLabs backing, we have a partner that believes wholeheartedly in our vision and lends us the operational expertise and financial strength to realise our goals' Dr Gangadi said.

MedPlus offers consumers the convenience of a broad selection of medicines from the top pharmaceutical manufacturers. This enables customers to get nearly any medicine they are prescribed in one place. In addition to this, it also offers home delivery and maintains electronic records of all prescriptions ordered from MedPlus. These records may be printed free of charge upon customer request, and can be a valuable source of information for both doctor and patient, said Dr. Gangadi.

Established in 2006 MedPlus is promoted by Optival. Optival operates India's fastest growing chain of full-service pharmacies across Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Currently it operates over 100 MedPlus branded pharmacy retail outlets in Hyderabad and Bangalore and 700 people including its highly trained and customer-focused pharmacists and pharmacy aides.