In the year 2018, when Arjun Deshpande was just 16 years old, he founded a company that offered medicines at a cheaper rate than those usually available in the market. And now, at the age of 21, Deshpande is the CEO of Generic Aadhaar, the startup which sells generic medicines via its chain of franchisees at an?80%-90% discount.?
The Mumbai-based startup is now worth a mammoth Rs 500 crore and has been?backed by Ratan Tata. Generic Aadhaar removed the chain of intermediaries such as marketers, distributors, and stockists, to cut down costs significantly. For example, the diabetes drug Glimepiride, which normally retails for Rs 110 per strip, is available a little over Rs 5 through Generic Aadhaar, whereas anti-allergen Levocetirizine, which usually retails for Rs 55, is available for under Rs 6 per strip, as per CNBCTV18.
In its first couple of years, Generic Aadhaar expanded rapidly across cities and won Deshpande his first TED talk which went viral and caught Ratan Tata's attention. Impressed by the company's innovative model, the industrialist offered to invest in the venture. Since then, Ratan Tata has helped Generic Aadhaar reach the last mile of the country. Now, the startup has 2,000 stores across the country, a manpower of nearly 10,000.
In April, as per Moneycontrol, Arjun Deshpande was lauded by President Droupadi Murmu for his dedication to making affordable medicine to Indian citizens and acknowledged Generic Aadhaar's work is contributing to the growth of the economy. She also called Deshpande the "wonder kid of pharma".
Currently, the company is working on expanding to Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, UAE, and Myanmar. “We will be shortly opening our stores in Dubai, Oman, Cambodia, and Vietnam as well,” Deshpande said.
Also, the company aims to increase its stores to 3,000 while entering into the veterinary space. 21-year-old Deshpande believes medicines for animals available at low prices would reduce the financial stress of the farmers. The company recently opened its first veterinary store in Andhra Pradesh.
As per the company's website, CEO Deshpande has been invited?to various international and national platforms such as IIT Mumbai, IIT Delhi, CPhI, MSM, DPU, Blackbook Germany, and many more. He has been invited to the TEDx 5 times too. The startup claims to provide high-quality medicines at big discounts from manufacturers to end customers directly, by cutting down all the costs of a middle chain such as marketing, distributor, stockist, supply chain, etc.?
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Arjun was awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020. He?shared an inspirational post mentioning Ratan Tata last year:
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