Medicine-ordering app Medlife acquires e-pharmacy Myra

Bengaluru-based Medlife International Pvt. Ltd, a self-funded online platform that delivers medicines and offers other healthcare services, said it has acquired online pharmacy app Myra Medicines, headquartered in the same city.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

The acquisition will help Medlife to strengthen its pharma business and accrue profits as well as expand Myra’s services to 22 cities this April-June quarter, the acquirer said in a statement.

“Our acquisition of Myra Medicines will be a game changer in the delivery of quality services for access to medicines. We are currently servicing over 20,000 deliveries every day across 29 states and having Myra on board will further strengthen our standing as a dependable and reliable partner for people’s health. Our target for the next quarter is to achieve a 30-minute to one-hour delivery window,” said Tushar Kumar, founder and chief executive, Medlife.

Founded in 2014 by Kumar and Prashant Singh, Medlife started with online drug delivery and gradually diversified into online doctor consultation and laboratory services. The company is also in the process of launching a generic business and private-label products.

Kumar and Singh also run Tulip Lab Pvt. Ltd, a company that makes herbal and allopathic medicines. In fact, Kumar comes from a family of pharmaceutical entrepreneurs and briefly worked with drugmaker Alkem Laboratories Ltd, which went public in 2015.

“Medlife’s physical network, 50,000 SKUs (stock keeping units) and multiple-city presence will allow Myra to offer express-delivery service across the network. Medlife’s full-stack inventory will also enable Myra Medicines to increase margins and meet the increasing demand, making the latter profitable by this quarter itself,” the statement said.

Myra, owned by Metarain Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd, was founded in January 2013 by Faizan Aziz, former chief technology officer at startup Dexetra, which had developed a Siri-like voice assistant, and Anirudh Coontoor, who had a stint as a software engineer at Nokia.

The Myra mobile app, which is available both on Android and iOS platforms, offers fast online access to medicines with doorstep delivery. It caters to consumers in select areas of Bengaluru and Mumbai, as of now.

Myra competes with a few significantly-funded players such as Netmeds, PharmEasy, 1mg and Healthkart.

Last year in September, Myra raised Rs 8.75 crore in additional capital from its existing investors Matrix Venture Partners and Times Internet.