The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 264 No 7087 p399
March 11, 2000 Business

Unipharma portal goes live

Unipharma.net, an internet portal for community pharmacies, went live last week offering access to six companies supplying generic medicines, parallel imports and dressings (www.unipharma.net). The site was officially launched by its founders Dr Hesham Mehanna (strategy and development director, Unipharma) and Mr Eric Hunter (commercial director, Unipharma) in London on March 2. Dr Mehanna is an ear, nose and throat surgeon and Mr Hunter previously worked for many years in the agrochemicals division of Zeneca (formerly ICI). Dr Mehanna said that he and Mr Hunter had spent 15 months developing the system. The idea for the site had come from speaking to friends who were independent community pharmacy owners. One of their biggest problems, he felt, was the amount of time they had to spend wading through printed price lists in order to purchase stock for their pharmacies.

An example order made through a test part of the Unipharma site (www.unipharma.net)

Describing Unipharma.net as "an interactive database hosted on the internet", Dr Mehanna said that it would save pharmacists time, effort and money by allowing them to make more informed purchasing decisions from a wider range of suppliers than in the past.
Products are currently available from six suppliers: Sigma Pharmaceuticals, National Generics, Chemilines, A1 Pharmaceuticals, PIF Medical Supplies and Global Pharmaceuticals. Dr Mehanna said that a decision had been made to limit the number of suppliers initially in order to make sure that the system was operating smoothly when it started. Discussions were being held with other suppliers and more were expected to join the system shortly.
A pilot trial of the site started two weeks ago with Unipharma inviting independent community pharmacies in Glasgow and Manchester to register to use the site. Registration involves completing an online form with details of the business and trade references. These are verified by Unipharma, a process which can take up to five days. At the time of the launch, no pharmacies had completed registration and actually placed orders. An interactive demonstration of how order placing through the system works is available on the site.
Dr Mehanna said that the system would allow suppliers to offer different prices to different customers, just as they already did, but he said that this would not lead to a price war because pharmacists using the system could only see the prices offered to them directly and suppliers could not see each other's prices.
Unipharma will take a transaction fee on each order placed. It is also hoping to raise revenue through advertising. The company is being backed by private investors and its founders' own capital. Mr Hunter said that a "significant" amount of money would be spent on further development and on promoting the site over the next three years.