Last week, just four months after telemedicine became legal in Russia, Mail.Ru Group, the LSE-listed Russian Internet giant, announced the launch of an online pharmacy.
Dubbed ‘All Pharmacies,’ the aggregator allows users to find and order any prescription drug or medical product — anything you can buy at an ordinary pharmacy — at the best price and receive it at the nearest pharmacy the next day.
Mail.Ru Group plans to offer a same-day service as a further step.
As of today, All Pharmacies is available for desktop users exclusively, but Android and iOS apps will soon be launched.
According to Alexander Kotlyarov, who heads the project, “half of the users show readiness to order non-prescription drugs online.”
“The project leverages on the experience we gained from our project Mail.Ru Health and a variety of e-commerce projects, inclusing Delivery Club [acquired by the group last year] and Yula,” he added.
E-health appeal
Several other major players positioned themselves recently on the Russian e-health scene. This past summer, Yandex, the local search giant, and Baring Vostok Capital Partners, a major Moscow-based investment fund, announced a $5.5 million investment in telemedicine startup Doc+.
In May 2017, Sberbank, the national savings bank, announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in another telemedecine startup, Docdoc, in a bid to create “a universal health service platform in Russia.”
Earlier this year, Russia’s sovereign fund RDIF announced its intention to invest in e-health projects, among other technological projects, in 2018.
