Taking a step further in its aggressive growth plans, Sequoia Capital backed online pharmacy 1mg on July 4 announced that it has acquired Medd, a marketplace for booking diagnostic and imaging tests. 1mg did not divulge the deal size and structure.

“Diagnostics is a huge opportunity within ecommerce since there are more than 100,000 diagnostics labs with very few scale players. Consumer experience is also not satisfactory with issues like requirements of advance bookings, lack of transparency in pricing across labs,” said Prashant Tandon, CEO at 1mg which got into the e-diagnostics space last August but so far has been limited to offering blood tests in tie-ups with about 15 different chains including Thyrocare, PathCare and US-based Quest Laboratories.

With this acquisition, 1mg is expanding to offer a service for booking of imaging tests such as X-rays, CT Scans and MRIs. Diagnostics is a $5-8 billion industry in India making up for 25% of the total pharmacy business. 1mg, which currently offers these services across 23 cities, is hoping to cover over 30 more cities this year with diagnostics and grow the total contribution of diagnostics in its revenues from 15 to 25%. The company claims to offer consumers 40-60% savings on lab tests by using the 1mg platform.

Medd, which operates across Mumbai, Indore, Bhopal, Nagpur, Bengaluru and Jaipur, was cofounded by IIT-Bombay graduates Arpit Kothari and Anurag Mundhada and Carnegie Mellon graduate Era Dwivedi in 2015. All of them have now joined the 1mg team.

Additionally, 1mg has brought on board Ankur Gigras, former marketing head for gastroenterology of Abbott. Gigras, who holds an MBA from Stanford GSB and BTech from IIT-Madras will be responsible for overseeing the diagnostics business and additionally drive innovative patient-centric models with pharma and insurance.

Source: The Economic Times

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