Online pharmacy Pulse plans to facilitate healthcare services for the chronically sick

Over a decade back when his classmates were burning the midnight oil preparing for school finals, 15-year-old Vishnu Prasath Devarajan was busy building a digital marketing company that would rake in a million dollar revenue.

A couple of years later, he moved to the US, where he hosted an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) business, sold it to a listed company before returning to his hometown Coimbatore.

Now, at 25, he is offering a healthcare solution for the chronically sick via Pulse, an online pharmacy.

Ask him why healthcare service, Vishnu reels off numbers to point out that accessibility to healthcare is still far from what it should be. “Three-fourths of healthcare access is limited to 28 per cent of people in tier-I cities and retail pharmacies are unable to fulfil 35–45 per cent of prescriptions. Online pharmacies are competing aggressively in this space, with just 4 per cent of the populace shopping online.”

“We embarked on this journey to take care of the healthcare needs of chronic patients, offer them personalised care and service. The journey is not over after the purchase of medicine. The patient or his kin should ensure that the medicines are taken on time and regularly, apart from monitoring the progress,” says Vishnu, Co-founder and Chief Strategist, Pulse.

Pulse has partnered with pharmacies and doctors in the region for supplying prescribed medicines.

Doctor consultation platform

“We have tied up with DocApp, which is a large doctor consultation platform. They do close to 6,000 consultations every day. We are looking to partner with every stakeholder in the ecosystem, including labs. Healthcare, incidentally, lacks transparency. So, we decided to start this digital platform to help people manage their healthcare needs in a cost effective manner,” he said.

Pulse has attracted 5 lakh users and the number is growing by the month. “We expect to reach one million customers in two months.

“We do not dispense Schedule H drugs without prescription. We also sell top products such as lotion, cream and health-related products to our subscribers. We do close to 350-400 transactions on our site every day.”

Pulse registered sales of ₹58 crore in FY 2019. The Co-founder of Pulse is now looking to raise capital. “We will need $8 million. We’ve engaged EY to do the investment advisory,” he said.