Reginex to invest Rs 25 cr to open Supermed pharmacies in TN

Chennai, Jan 23 (UNI) City-based Regenix Drugs Limited, a public limited company, engaged in promoting and trading of healthcare products worldwide, has proposed to invest Rs 25 crore to open its chain of "Supermed" pharmacy and surgical stores in Tamil Nadu.

Addressing a press conference here, Dr A Ramamurthy, Managing Director said the company proposed to open 200 stores within the next two years in phases.

In the first phase, 50 stores would be launched and the majority of the shops would be set up in major cities. This would be followed by 150 shops in the second and third phase of operations, which included stores in all parts of the state.

As part of first phase, 10 Supermed shops would be opened shortly, of which five stores would be set up in the city and one each in Coimbatore, Thanjavur, Tiruchendur, Tirunelveli and Tiruvallur, he said.

Supermed would be stand alone stores and would provide gurantee of 100 per cent genuine and wide range of medicines, imported drugs, surgical items, vaccine, hospital consumables, eye care products and diagnostic kits.

The stores would offer a significant cost advantage and in addition to home service. One could also procure medicines through online, he said.

The investment in each shop would vary from Rs four to Rs 10 lakh and the company expected to do a sale of around Rs 200 crore in 2013, he said.

Dr Ramamurthy said retail pharmacy in India was a dismal two per cent, compared to 30 per cent in Brazil, 35 per cent in Mexico and 50 per cent in Russia. Only two companies, Subishka and Apollo had major chunks in retail pharmacy, he added.

UNI WS ROY 1424