Ratan Tata, Industrialist and Chairman of the Tata Group has recently shown interest in investing in a pharmacy chain propagated by a teenager from Mumbai. Arjun Deshpande, an 18-year-old boy from Mumbai caught Ratan Tata’s attention who picked up stakes in ‘Generic Aadhar’ which is being promoted by Deshpande.
Generic Aadhar is ideally known to sell medicines at much lower rates than the market price. Even though Deshpande confirmed the deal between him and Ratan Tata, he refused to disclose the amount involved in the deal. He also added that Tata had earlier heard the proposal a couple of months back and had agreed to investments along with mentoring him in order to run the business successfully. He further added that a formal announcement would be made soon. Deshpande who had started the Generic Aadhar two years back has an annual turnover of over six crores now. Deshpande credits all the success to the unique business model which has helped him establish the business effectively.
This start-up follows a unique pharmacy-aggregator business model which sources generic drugs directly from the manufacturers. This is then sold to the retail pharmacies. This, in turn, results in the elimination of 16-20 per cent of the wholesale margin. This start-up which is mostly engaged in supplying drugs for patients suffering from diabetes and hypertension is touted to soon start offering drugs for cancer at much lower rates than the market price. Further, he added that within a year, he plans to have 1,000 small franchisee medical stores under the Generic Aadhar fold. It may also be noted that 30 retails from Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Odisha are part of the chain and follow the same profit-sharing model.
According to the sources in media, Ratan Tata had made a personal investment that had no links with the Tata Group. In the past, Tata has been known to invest in many start-ups which includes Ola, Paytm, Snapdeal, CureFit, Lenskart, Urban Ladder along with others.
Share
Tweet
