Pharmacies
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7 min
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September 18, 2025
Mubarak Odeyemi
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If you're a pharmacy owner feeling overwhelmed despite your passion for healthcare, this story might sound familiar.
You opened your pharmacy because you wanted to help people in your community access better healthcare. Maybe it was a dream you'd held for years, or perhaps someone who believed in you made it possible. Either way, you knew you could make a difference in people's lives.
But six years later, you're still guessing what medications to stock, watching some expire while customers search everywhere for meds you don't have. You want to grow, but banks won't give you a loan because your records don't meet their standards. Sound familiar, right?
You're not alone.
Late one night, a customer called our team at Famasi, desperate to find medication for her sick mother. She'd searched every pharmacy in her city, willing to pay extra just to find what she needed. We eventually found a pharmacy 40 kilometers away that had the drug.
But as the medication made its way closer, her mother died.
Minutes later, another pharmacy called. They had been sitting on that exact medication for 8 months, just 5 minutes from the patient's home. But it was too late.
This heartbreaking reality reflects what you probably face daily; the gap between wanting to help customers and having the business systems to make it happen effectively.
You're not failing
If you've been beating yourself up thinking you're not cut out for the business side of pharmacy, stop. The numbers tell a different story.
Across Nigeria, 68% of pharmacies still depend on pen-and-paper operations. That means most of your colleagues are struggling with the same inventory challenges, cash flow confusion, and growth limitations you face. When customers visit up to 8 pharmacies to find their medications, it's not because individual pharmacies are failing, it's because the entire system lacks the infrastructure for success.
Here's what might sting: despite women making up 40% of Nigeria's qualified pharmacists, female-owned pharmacies represent only 15% of the sector. Globally, women entrepreneurs face a $1.7 trillion financing gap, with only 7% of Sub-Saharan African women accessing formal credit.
But here's what that actually means: your struggles aren't personal failures. They're systemic challenges that require systematic solutions.
Beyond the statistics: real pharmacy struggles
During our 18 months working with 1,000+ pharmacies, we discovered pharmacy owners who were struggling the most weren't lacking in clinical knowledge or passion for patient care. They were missing foundational business skills that nobody ever taught them.
Can you analyze your monthly sales data to identify your most profitable products? Do you know how to forecast demand for your top 20 medications? Can you prepare financial documentation that would convince a bank to lend to you?
If you're shaking your head, you're in good company.
When CareCapital applications opened, the responses confirmed what we had observed. Pharmacies that had been operational for 6 years were still using pen and paper for all their records. Business owners passionate about healthcare delivery struggled with basic cash flow analysis, didn't know how to interpret sales reports, and made stocking decisions based on guesswork rather than data.
One pharmacy owner's story particularly stood out during the application process. Her pharmacy had been a gift of love from her husband because of her passion for improving community healthcare. But while she understood care delivery, the business fundamentals like inventory management, financial planning, and trend prediction remained foreign territory. When financing partners wanted to help, the basic business information was lacking. Despite her passion, the pharmacy struggled, customers couldn't access medications, and the business suffered.
But what happens when the struggles are not addressed?
When your pharmacy struggle to grow or sustain operations, the impact extends far beyond business metrics. In Nigeria, where your pharmacy often serves as the first and sometimes only healthcare contact for your community, business failures translate directly into healthcare access problems.
The supply chain problems are obvious. You overstock products that sit for months, leading to expiry losses and financial strain. Simultaneously, you understock essential medications, forcing customers to search multiple locations or go without treatment. This creates a lose-lose scenario where you lose money on expired stock while customers lose access to critical medications.
For female pharmacy owners, these challenges are often compounded by limited access to business mentorship, restricted financing options, and the additional burden of proving capabilities.
The birth of CareCapital: How we designed solutions for these real challenges
Rather than creating another generic business training program, we structured CareCapital's curriculum around the exact challenges that emerged from pharmacy applications and our work with over 1,000 pharmacies. Each identified problem with a solution built directly into the program structure.
For instance, when pharmacy owners told us they were making stocking decisions based on gut feeling, we knew we needed more than theory. We brought in supply chain expert who could break down ABC analysis—a method to categorise your inventory by profitability and sales velocity—into simple, actionable steps.
Many applications revealed pharmacy owners working 12-hour days or can't afford to take a break because they couldn't delegate effectively. Our leadership sessions focused on building systems that don't depend entirely on you being present. We focused on teaching how to create standard operating procedures, train staff properly, and build the kind of workplace culture that retains good employees.
Likewise, when 70% of applicants had never received external funding, we realised the problem wasn't just about finding lenders, it was about becoming lendable. Our financing modules touched on how to prepare proper financial statements, understand what banks actually look for, and access alternative financing sources designed for businesses like yours.
This wasn't theoretical curriculum design. Every module came straight from pharmacy owners who were tired of struggling with problems that had solutions.
The program operates on a simple principle: teach complex business concepts like you're explaining them to someone who's never seen them before. But the real learning happened in the peer-to-peer learning workshops where Pharmacies worked through case studies with other pharmacy owners facing similar challenges.
***Attach screenshots from case studies and feedback
Above all, our facilitators weren't chosen because they had impressive credentials, they were chosen because they understand what it's like to run a pharmacy in Nigeria
Dispensary by Famasi: The digital tool
Here's where the real growth becomes measurable. While you're learning business fundamentals in CareCapital, you're simultaneously implementing Dispensary, the digital tool that tracks your progress and proves your improvements.
Instead of guessing about your inventory, Dispensary shows you real-time stock levels, sales trend and makes reordering easy. You can see which medications are moving fast, which are sitting too long, and exactly when to restock. The system tracks every transaction, so you finally have the sales data banks want to see.
But the real game-changer is the medication request feature. When customers search for medications through Famasi's platform or marketplaces, they're connected directly to your pharmacy if those drugs are available. Suddenly, you're not limited to walk-in traffic from your immediate neighborhood.
Carlsana Pharmacy in Port Harcourt faced the same constraints you probably recognise. Despite successful operations and even a second branch, they were limited to serving customers who physically walked through their doors. They wanted growth but didn't want to to keep opening new locations.
When they started accepting medication requests through Dispensary, their customer base expanded. Within a year, they saw 10-15% revenue growth directly from customers they never would have reached otherwise. More importantly, those patients stopped having to search multiple pharmacies for their medications.
"I recommend Famasi Africa to other pharmacies because this partnership shows how collaboration can improve healthcare delivery in Nigeria," said Pharm. Sandra from Carlsana.
The difference wasn't just having a digital system, it was having the business foundation to use that system effectively. The inventory management skills, customer service protocols, and financial tracking that make digital tools actually work
What happens when the pieces come together
3 weeks into the first CareCapital cohort, the stories started emerging. Not the dramatic overnight changes, but the kind of steady improvements that compound into real business growth.
"I've been using pen and paper for 6 years"
One participant's comment during the first session captured the reality many were facing. 6 years of operation, serving her community effectively, but entirely dependent on manual systems that limited her growth. The idea of going digital initially felt overwhelming.
"Take us like babies," another told the facilitators during week one. Not because she wasn't intelligent, but because she recognised the gap between her clinical expertise and business systems knowledge.
During the data analytics session, participants started recognising patterns they'd never noticed before. These weren't theoretical insights. They were actionable discoveries that immediately improved how these business owners made daily decisions about what to stock, how to price, and where to focus their limited resources.
With Dispensary, participants could track their stock, monitor sales growth, and get more requests.
So, what next?
The growth happening in CareCapital isn't unique to those 50 women. It's what becomes possible when you finally get the business foundation that matches your clinical expertise.
These women proved that growing your pharmacy doesn't require miracle solutions or massive capital investments. It requires attention to business fundamentals that nobody ever taught them, combined with tools like Dispensary to make better decision-making possible.
If you've recognised your own struggles in these stories, you already know what needs to change. The choice is whether you want to continue managing the same challenges year after year, or build the kind of pharmacy operation that actually serves both your business goals and your community's health needs with the right digital tool.
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