Medicine Made Easy
By Cristina Adams
May 2024
Most people don’t want to take medication unless their health depends on it. Unfortunately, it often does — and that’s where Prixz comes in. The Mexico-based healthtech company features an e-commerce platform and a broad catalog of medications and pharmaceutical products available for on-demand delivery.
Medication bought online and delivered to your
front door? Can it be that easy? According to Prixz Co-Founder and CEO Manuel Manzur, it can, but it has taken hard work, late nights, and a transformation of the original business model to make it that way.
“People buy medicines out of necessity; no one desires to do so,” he says. “We begin by empathizing with our customers, who are essentially patients. A big part of our philosophy and mission is that we want to make the process less of a hassle.”
Prixz was founded in 2016, but its current business model wasn’t implemented until three years later. That’s when things took off. The original model had an e-commerce component, while also offering logistical services that connected pharmacies with inventory at the point of sale, then made the deliveries. There were even deals with three of the country’s biggest pharmacy chains.
Everything seemed to be on track until problems began popping up. There were issues with supply, in-person sales, and the ability to count on doing business in real time. Perhaps more importantly, Manuel and his team realized that traditional pharmacies weren’t yet equipped to make the leap to an online platform. This was a massive opportunity for Prixz and a turning point catalyzed by its strategic focus on the burgeoning demand within the Mexican online pharmacy market, leading to a remarkable 20% month-over-month growth.
"People buy medicines out of necessity. We want to make the process less of a hassle."
“The new sales model focuses 100% on e-commerce and home delivery,” Manuel says. “We designed it to exclusively address that approach.”
The move to an online platform proved to be a smart one. The company offers nationwide service; even customers living in more remote areas can count on receiving their medication via a courier, whether they need it once a week or more often. Reliability is built into the model. What’s more, Prixz is able to offer a broad catalog of hard-to-find medications and healthcare goods without the need to keep them physically in stock.
“That’s the advantage of the e-commerce platform,” Manuel notes. “It allows us to offer products that aren’t usually found in a brick-and-mortar pharmacy. We are a single source.”
Even though Prixz has become the biggest online-only pharmacy in Mexico, with a continuing growth of 20% month over month four years after launching, and important relationships with online giants like Amazon and Mercado Libre, Manuel admits there’s never time to rest on his laurels. Market competitors, shifting government regulations, the economy, and an unpredictable macro financial landscape are enough to keep him and his team on their toes.
“There is so much we want to do that we have to take it one step at a time,” Manuel says. “Mexico is a very big market, and we are just getting started.”