Steps To Owning A Pharmacy In Nigeria - Investment

Just to share some important but brief points on owning a RETAIL Pharmacy.

What Is Retail Pharmacy?

Well it is a Pharmacy that sells drugs in retails basically. They are of two types: one is hospital Pharmacy and the second is what is called Community Pharmacy. The second one represents the usual pharmacies you see around outside the hospital premises and they are what most people call Pharmacy. That's the one I'm talking about here too.
Okay, now that we understand what this is about, what are the basic steps required to own a Pharmacy in Nigeria?

1. You must either be a Fully Registered Pharmacist or your partner with one. Technically, only a Pharmacist can own a Pharmacy in Nigeria. Non Pharmacists can however deal in Wholesale though you will still need a Superintendent Pharmacist to register the Pharmacy with the Pharmacists Council (PCN)

If you are not a Pharmacist and you are serious (+ you have your money) I can help you get one.

2. Register your company with Corporate Affairs Commission You will need some of the documents here later. One warning I must give you is that the Pharmacist must have like 60% shares in the company otherwise you may not be able to proceed later. Your forms must be clear about who owns the Pharmacy (the Pharmacist) and who is/ are the other Director(s)

60%?! So why border then?/b]

Well you should have done your feasibility studies before investing. What I can tell you is that if you have a good location you ( with your 40%) can make more money in the long run than many other retail businesses. Imagine a single Pharmacy making sales (I didn't say profit) of 1million in just one day. This is not common though; it can only happen with excellent locations and great customer service. What is commoner is 300k-500k/day in moderately good locations. You can attest to the fact that this is not bad sales volume though. It's all about location and management skills. Some Pharmacies close down mostly because of bad location and poor management (they think they don't need expert advice- especially true for pharmacists- and end up wasting their investment)

3. [b] Get a business premises (store)

Great if you have your own store but if not, you need to find a way of tying down the location to go through the process of approval

4. Employ A Superintendent Pharmacist if you are not a Pharmacist [b]

To save yourself from stress, experience tells me you better let your Superintendent Pharmacist be the same as the Pharmacist who is your partner. The payment for this role is however different. In fact, it's in two phases: you will pay for the License to register the Pharmacy with PCN and then the monthly salary based on agreement.

It is the Superintendent Pharmacist that will register the Pharmacy with PCN.

The following are the necessary steps to be taken with the assistance of the Superintendent Pharmacist (SP from now)

a) Location Inspection:
>The SP writes the PCN Registrar through the state office requesting for inspection location.
>Payment is then made to the bank. The SP should find out current charge from your state PCN office.

I will advise you start this process around June or early in December or seek local advice through the SP from the state PCN office (better)
It's not yet a good system they are running at PCN.

b. Collect and fill necessary forms and return them to the PCN office

**The reason I said to start the process in December is that they plan for inspection the following year then so you can be among the first to be inspected in your own area (not always so anyway... lots of politics)
June because it may take 6months or more to complete the process. It can save you paying for License twice before starting real business. This is not full proof. You can't be so sure how fast or slow the process will be as at now. Maybe Buhari's administration will help solve making simple processes in Nigeria so complicated.**

c. [b] Set Up The Premises but DON'T STOCK YET!
Once your location is approved, you may be asked to start setting up the Premises for business. You should be given some requirements- things to put in place like your shelves, fire extinguisher, Pharmacist office, A/C, Poison Box and some books. You may be asked to pay some fees at this stage to collect the requirements. The current client was asked to pay N3,000

d. Apply for Registration of Pharmacy Premises
Your premises will be inspected to see if you met the requirements and you will also be asked to pay for the license and registration.
The SP is the one that is involved in all this. In fact, PCN doesn't want to deal with you if you are not a Pharmacist. You don't even need to be there during all the inspections. Only the SP and the Pharmacist on the Board of Directors (if different) are expected to be seen.
e. Once Registered you should receive a copy of all the documents and then go ahead with stocking and business proper.

But bear in mind that each years registration ends December. If you start too early and the inspection was made, and you commence the next step, you may need to pay for registration of premises twice before commencing real business. But like I said, the process is not so predictable. Prepare for 6-8months.
This also means ( if the SP is not the same as the Pharmacist on BoD) you need to be ready to be paying the Pharmacist some "salary" to "tie her/him down" till the process is completed otherwise the SP may not be available for the inspections.



The short cut to all these is to buy a Pharmacy put on sale when you are ready but it comes with its own challenges too.
I'll stop here for now. I hope this will be of help to someone out there.