Without adequate government-led public health initiatives, healthcare costs, including insurance and medicines, can burden individuals and families. In recent years, private institutions have seen significant penetration of health insurance and medicines and reduced costs of obtaining them across Egypt, the largest drug producer in the MENA region, where the drug market is expected to reach $6 billion. has played a major role in value of the year. His Yodawy, backed by Global Ventures, is one such privately held company, pharmacy benefits manager Raised $16 million in Series B funding.
The United Arab Emirates-based MEA-focused venture capital firm co-led the round, and Delivery Hero Ventures, the venture arm of global food delivery platform Delivery Hero, is currently the first in Africa. I am checking. Singapore-based AAIC Investment and Saudi Arabia’s Dallah Al-Baraka also participated in the round. Existing investors who participated in his $7.5 million Series A round in digital healthcare in 2019 also include Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), C Ventures and P1 Ventures.
Co-founder and CEO Karim Khashaba told TechCrunch that the healthtech startup plans to use the investment to expand across markets in the Middle East and Africa, where pharmaceuticals represent a $60 billion market opportunity. Told. Yodawy’s journey in Egypt began in his 2018 when Khashaba founded the company with his COO Yasser Abdel Gawad and his CTO Sherief El-Feky. They have built an infrastructure that accommodates the services of partners (insurers, healthcare providers, pharmacies, pharmaceutical/FMCG companies) and connects them with the business his clients and individuals.
Here is one example that highlights a problem faced by all Yodawy stakeholders. Over 90% of his Egyptian prescriptions and insurance claims are documented on paper. It may sound trivial, but this impacts all parties in its value chain, from incorrect prescriptions to long processing times to queues at pharmacies and hospitals. .
Yodawy’s platform enables insurance companies and hospitals to automate approvals, save costs and improve the customer experience. Also, pharmacies can gain an online presence and increase sales through his Yodawy’s e-commerce service. This allows patients to benefit from having medicines and medicines delivered to their doorsteps (through employer-driven health care plans). Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, can leverage Yodawy’s network of pharmacies to get their products into the hands of consumers.
“We have built a strong network of insurance partners and employer-led healthcare systems. We manage the end-to-end value chain of prescriptions almost every month in 30 cities in Egypt,” the chief executive said by phone.
He claims that Yodawy is now a major partner of most companies (about 300) in the Egyptian market, serving patients (employees) who need chronic medication. . Adopting a B2B2C model, the Giza-based healthtech startup has partnered with 20 health insurers and his 500 doctors, and 3,000 pharmacies through individuals in these companies to his 4 million We are processing more than one prescription. Meanwhile, Yodawy recently launched its flagship e-prescription gateway that enables doctors to go paperless. The program involves seven insurance companies and health care organizations, and more than 2,000 electronic prescriptions are created every day. The company’s revenue is up 400% from its last pricing round 18 months ago.
“The pharmaceutical value chain is very complex and we had to build it to streamline the process. [and] Additional products for insurance companies and doctors. As such, we have delivered significant traction in converting handwritten prescriptions to electronic prescriptions, serving physicians through our e-prescription gateway,” he said.
“This leads to our second product, which is an approval engine currently used by about 10 insurers in the market, a real-time approval engine that can automate the traditional manual approval process that creates a lot of friction. engine, 80% of the decision-making is being replaced by the insurance back office.”
In Egypt, there are several e-pharmacy providers such as PharmacyMarts, Chefaa and Vezeeta (one of the company’s products) serving different types of businesses and individual customers. In Sub-Saharan Africa, companies like mPharma, Lifestores and Drugstoc are in the conversation. But Khashaba says Yodawy is the only full-fledged company with the technology to manage the end-to-end prescription cycle, whether it’s creating an electronic prescription gateway for hospitals and doctors or an approval automation engine for insurance companies. pharmacy benefits manager. Fulfillment.
What Yodawy lacks, however, is the last mile feature. The investment from Delivery Hero Ventures is strategic. The digital healthcare startup could partner with Delivery Hero in some way to handle an integral part of its business.
In addition to expansion across the Middle East and Africa, the return on investment will drive the growth of its flagship care program for chronic patients, Yodawy said in a statement. The program provides monthly medication refills to enrolled patients and handles daily deliveries in his 38 cities in Egypt. The company also plans to continue automating its operations to enable larger prescription processing and enhance its existing technology-enabled fulfillment capabilities to serve its rapidly growing patient base.
“We continue to be fascinated by the way they do things. [Yodawy] Global Ventures Managing Partner Noor Sweid discussed why her company co-led the startup round after leading the startup round in Series A. Serving over 50,000 relapsing chronic patients each month and saving over 100,000 hours in queue each month to receive essential medicines. “
Brendon Blacker, managing partner at Delivery Hero Ventures, who will join Yodawy’s board, adds that his company was drawn to the Egyptian health tech’s “clear vision to revolutionize the pharmacy industry in the MENA region.” . This latest funding brings the total capitalization of his four-year-old company to $24.5 million.
