Confidence gained a majority stake in online pharmacy Netmeds for about Rs 6.2 billion.
Bengaluru:
Reliance Industries Ltd has acquired a majority stake in online pharmacy Netmeds for about 6.2 billion rupees ($ 83.08 million) in cash, days after e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc launched an online drug sales service in India.
The oil-to-telecom conglomerate said late Tuesday that its investment represents about 60% retention in Vitalic Health Pvt. Ltd. and 100% direct ownership of their subsidiaries.
Vitalic and its subsidiaries, collectively known as Netmeds, were incorporated in 2015. Netmeds is a licensed e-pharma portal that provides verification of medicines and OTC medicines along with other health products in India.
The COVID-19 crisis, which boosted a wave of online shopping, has led to increased competition between Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart, Reliance’s upstart online shopping service, JioMart and a range of other smaller players for a share in the second most popular in the world country.
India is still in the process of finalizing regulations for online drug sales, such as e-pharmacies, but growth of online retailers such as Medlife, Netmeds, Temasek support PharmEasy and Sequoia Capital support 1mg has threatened traditional drug stores.
Many trade groups are against e-pharmacies, saying they would lead to sales of medicines without proper verification.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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