Chennai based Space Hospitals Ltd, a telemedicine service provider is planning to foray into the pharmacy segment by opening chain retail pharmacies under the brand name "Space Telemed". The investment into the same has not been decided upon yet.

The company is planning to enter the sector by taking over retail pharmacies attached to various hospitals and clinics and renaming it as "Space Telemed". And in case pharmacies are not present in a particular area; they might set up their own pharmacy under the same brand name.

According to A Sivakumaran, chief financial officer, Space Hospitals Ltd, the company will take over the hospital and upgrade it by computerizing it and creating a network between all the pharmacies under the brand name "Space Telemed".

"We will be having a centralized computer facility that would be used to monitor the movement of stocks in the pharmacies. Moreover in case a particular medicine is unavailable in one of the Space Telemed pharmacy, he can check for the medicine's availability in the nearest pharmacy in the chain through the computer and direct the customer there or procure it for them. This would help in saving a lot of time," he said.

According to him, this chain retail pharmacy would not be a hindrance for the individual pharmacies, as the company would only be taking over the existing pharmacies. In case any particular pharmacy other than the one's in the hospitals, was running at loss and was willing to join the chain; the same would be done too.

Speaking about their other ventures in the telemedicine sector, he said that Space Hospitals was in the process of providing service to Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). The service will be provided from SAIL's mine in Kiruburu in Chattisgarh, in association with Apollo Hospitals. The service is likely to be started shortly.

"We have been receiving requests from other corporate companies too. We are just studying the area so that we can give good service to them. Some of the companies that have evinced interest are HAL, TATA Steel etc," said Sivakumar.

On the international real, he said that the company had received proposals from Africa, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Space Hospitals was at present studying the terrains of these countries so that they could provide uninterrupted services.

"We are planning to foray into the African countries in a partnership mode. This is because the administration in those countries needs us to follow some norms related to the facility. So we are looking out to partner with companies which have facilities complying with the norms of those countries," he said.