The Generics Pharmacy has surged to become one of the country's most promising franchising businesses. By year's end, it is poised to have 600 outlets nationwide. But before the runaway success that it is enjoying now, the company has had decades of experience in wholesale distribution of medicines and other pharmaceutical products to drugstores, hospitals and factories. Parlaying that experiences into providing quality yet affordable medicines to thousands of Filipinos – and livelihood to hundreds more enterprising Pinoys through franchising - has been the job of The Generics Pharmacy's president and CEO, Benjamin Liuson, for the last 35 years. Liuson joined the company in 1974, shortly after his father's death. Before that, in 1960, his parents bought the company from its original German owners, who founded the firm in 1949. He continued the family business, selling about 50 pharmaceutical products to big-volume buyer, until he planted the seeds of The Generics Pharmacy's future success in 1982. That was when the company began selling generic medicines wholesale, seven years before the The Generics Act was signed into law in 1989. However, it wasn't until 2001 when The Generics Pharmacy, seeing the need to serve patients from low-income groups, went the retail route and opened its first and only company-owned drugstore at its head office on Quezon Ave. in Quezon City. Banking on its strength on distribution, the company then opened its business to franchising in 2007. Incredibly, franchisees own the rest of The Generics Pharmacy's 500-plus branches- and people are still buying into the company, says Liuson. "We are now operating at a growth of 200 outlets a year," says Liuson, who aims to run the country's largest retail drugstore chain within the next two years by growing to more than 1,000 outlets. He says that franchisees get their investment - ranging from P650,00 to P850,000-back in one to two years. "We do not do what others are already doing. It’s an original concept,” he adds.Interested franchise applicants may attend the seminars presided over by its franchising consulting firm Francorp. Franchisees and their pharmacists also get substantial franchise support and training. Through the franchising model, The Generics Pharmacy has thus served cash-strapped customers who need not go all the way to manila from the provinces to buy generic medicines. Liuson notes that they now have outlets as far as Tawi-tawi in Mindanao, carrying some products that serve 90 percent of the mass market's medicine requirements. "we only sell generics, not branded medicines" stresses Liuson, whose three daughters hold key positions in the company's accounting, purchasing and inventory, and advertising departments. When asked why the business has grown so rapidly in two years, with a 300-percent increase in sales from 2007, Liuson says it is because their products, made from branded preparations, are effective yet low priced. Paracetamol at The Generics Pharmacy, for instance, costs just one-fifth of what it would be priced at other drugstores. Also, The Generics Pharmacy has attracted budget conscious consumers partly because its shops are usually located near more established drugstore that carry branded medicine, and provide services like free blood pressure checks and blood sugar tests for only P25. Selected outlets also offer free medical check-ups.
In addition to all these services, Liuson notes that t he business itself is a form of corporate social responsibility, which is why the prices of The Generics Pharmacy's medicines are kept stable, regardless of demand or shortages in stock. "Not every business can say that. We have been offering lowpriced medicines even before the Cheaper Medicines Act was enacted," says Liuson, who is proud to add that the company's franchisees include second generation drugstore owners who have been patronizing their products since 1960. With its number of branches increasing every day, even more clients will patronize The Generics Pharmacy. It's the kind of runaway success any parent can be proud of.
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AMPULES & VIALS
