Trxade CEO Suren Ajjarapu: Will see the impact of GPO program by Q3 next year

Give us a quick overview of the company. 

Trxade is a market platform that caters to the independent pharmacies that have no purchasing power, or, face cash flows issues or negative reimbursement. Those are the three problems that we try to address. As my partner and I used to own independent pharmacies, we went through these three problems. I have to pay by the seventh business day to the big wholesalers while I’m waiting for my reimbursement to come. That’s one, cash flow issue. 

Two, sometimes that prescription can be dispensed at a loss. So that’s a negative reimbursement. And finally, the third problem is supply chain issues. Such information is not readily available when compared to the big-box chains that have millions of dollars worth of IT systems. Our independent pharmacies don’t have the bandwidth or the resources to spend on IT. That’s the empowerment that Trxade provides. 

Earlier this week you reported your Q3 results and interestingly there was a 34% sequential increase in revenues. What really contributed to the growth? 

Our platform is growing. We have added 250 new independent pharmacies, so that’s one thing. And the second is that the per-wallet share per month is also increasing because independent pharmacies, which do $3-3.5 million in annual revenues, have the purchasing power of a quarter-million to $300,000 at this time. They may be doing 4,000 to 5,000 per wallet per pharmacy per month, so that’s the exponential growth that we are also focusing on. And that’s the reason you see gross margin also increased because of our platform revenues.

You had recently started targeting non-pharmacy also to add to your Trxade platform. When you say you added 250 new registered members what can you tell us about the mix of pharmacy-to-non-pharmacy additions? Where do you see a higher pace of growth?

It’s still the pharmacies. Probably I would consider 90% of those are independent pharmacies and only 10% of a clinical side of it. But we have identified almost 30,000- 50,000 of these clinics that have a similar problem like the independent pharmacies have. For example, podiatrists or dentists, or ophthalmologists. These are, again, a single doctor, and maybe a nurse helping to do the procurement of these drugs. Those are the areas that our focus is, not the big hospital chains. 

We are not even peaked on the pharmacy side. As I mentioned, we are gathering the masses first, and then we are focusing on the per-wallet share per month purchase.  

During our last call, you spoke about how the rising COVID cases in India and China were affecting your supply of generics. How has the situation evolved since then?

The global supply chain is the biggest issue. Even in the US, we have a big supply chain issue and it will be there constantly. But that’s where our platform thrives. Patients cannot suffer from supply disruption. The independent pharmacists still need to serve these patients. Indirectly we are serving 15-17 million patients through over 12,950 independent pharmacies. So we need to cater to that. And that’s how Trxade thrives in those kinds of supply chain disruption issues. 

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Your Bonum Health unit recently launched something interesting called digital telemedicine passes. Tell us a bit about that. 

It’s an e-gift program. So the people can gift telehealth. Granted most people are working from home because of the pandemic, but they are still worried even if they have a slight cough or a sneeze. They don’t know whether it’s COVID or not. So they at least can talk to the doctor and get themselves tested. Their results can be uploaded to Bonum Health. 

So that’s what the e-gift card program is all about. Not only that, we are catering to 50 million uninsured and underinsured patients. So this gift of health is a first in the telemedicine world.  Especially during Thanksgiving and Christmas time, everybody wants to gift. And what else is better than their good health? 

And how is it going to impact your overall financials?

It’s $40 a gift card. We still have a $30 charge for the doctor, but our aim is the percentage utilization rate. If I’m able to sell 100,000 gift cards, that’s a million dollars added to the bottom line. 

What’s the update on your partnership with GPOs and when should one expect to see a material impact on your financials from these partnerships? 

Our GPO program is nothing but pharmacies buying 100% through our platform. To add that, you need to have a full breadth of the catalog and other items that each individual pharmacies look for as well. So the platform has to address all the needs. That’s where we are taking slow and steady growth. Even if 10 pharmacies are buying worth $300,000, that’s a $3 million revenue increase per month, as we see. So to answer your question, probably towards the second quarter or third quarter, we will try to see the impact of those GPO programs. 

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You had earlier mentioned some of the headwinds facing the Medcheks health passport product. How do you propose to take this product forward? 

Even though the temporary fix for Medcheks is only vaccination and COVID test results, the end goal there for Medcheks is each individual person carrying their own health records. Right now, most health records stay in the doctors’ offices. There is EMR, EHR, but there is the risk of a virus attack. We want to empower the patient with their own health records so that they can take care of their own well-being. That’s our end goal. Not only that, we want to integrate it with our Bonum Health platform.