Many people in cities have long been used to ordering chips, crates of beer, pizza or clothing to be delivered to their home via smartphone.

But when it comes to medicines, going to the nearest pharmacy is the norm.

There are good reasons for this: pharmacists know about the risks and side effects of medicines.

Your advice works best on site and, from a purely legal point of view, cannot be taken over so easily by delivery service messengers.

Nevertheless, more and more start-ups are trying to close the gap.

Every hair salon works with online booking and digital management systems, says Lukas Pieczonka, entrepreneur and co-founder of the pharmacy delivery service Mayd from Berlin.

“This digital interface between the product and the customer doesn’t even exist in pharmacies.

And that's where we're positioning ourselves," he emphasizes.

"We are the link between the local pharmacy and the customers."

Medicines delivered to your door

Patients can use the Mayd app to order over-the-counter medicines from their local pharmacy.

A driver from the start-up collects the order from there and delivers it to your home within 30 minutes - even after the shop closes and on Sundays.

The pharmacy must ensure that patients are still informed about the drug, for example by telephone or via the platform.

More and more start-ups such as Phaster, First-A and Kurando are recognizing the potential for delivery services for pharmacies.

They collect millions from investors and expand into many German metropolises.

First A, for example, is on the road in Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Munich and Frankfurt.

Mayd planned further starts in Stuttgart, Hanover, Leipzig and Essen for this week.

By the end of March, Kurando wants to add other cities in addition to Berlin, Munich and Düsseldorf.

They all rely on an important innovation in the healthcare system: the planned introduction of the e-prescription in Germany.

In future, the prescription handover between the doctor and the pharmacy will then take place automatically online.

Patients no longer have to take prescriptions to the pharmacy or send them by post to a pharmacy mail order company.

Providers such as DocMorris, who circumvent the strict shipping regulations in Germany with a delivery from the Netherlands, also need doctors' prescriptions for prescription drugs.

With the e-prescription, the introduction of which has been delayed, delivery services could also transport prescription drugs more easily - provided the patients were informed beforehand.

The Mayd investor Earlybird is betting that, driven by the e-prescription, sales from the online delivery of medicines in Europe will more than quadruple by 2030.

Shipping for prescription medicines is regulated

Prescription medicines make up the lion's share of the pharmaceutical market: According to the Federal Union of German Pharmacists' Associations (ABDA), in 2020 they accounted for almost 58 percent of all packaging sold and more than 83 percent of total sales.

However, the shipping of medicines in Germany is precisely regulated and sets high hurdles for start-ups.

The ABDA explains that only around 3,000 of the approximately 18,500 pharmacies in this country have a legal shipping permit and are allowed to send medicines with the help of external service providers.

The rules for messenger services are different.

The pharmacist staff is allowed to deliver medicines here.

The ABDA reports 300,000 messenger services a day.

"The use of the pharmacy's own messenger staff ensures that the necessary advice for patients is given at the same high level as if the pharmacy were visited on site in its premises," explains the association.

The law always prescribes advice on medicines, whether it is an over-the-counter cold remedy or a medicine prescribed by a doctor.

For start-ups, this is likely to be tight in the short delivery time.

The ABDA does not want to evaluate the business model of delivery services, but emphasizes that the use of external staff is "inadmissible under pharmacy law".

A power of instruction agreed on in another contractual arrangement is not sufficient.

This results in legal ambiguities for the delivery services.

Mayd, for example, enters into permanent partnerships with individual pharmacies and runs the deliveries as a courier service.

The Berlin delivery service Kurando, on the other hand, offers its service as a mail order business, says co-founder Niklas Spiegel.

Pharmacies wishing to work with Kurando must apply for a shipping license.

competition with mail-order pharmacies

Berlin pharmacies that are already working with the start-ups report strong demand in the “Apotheke Adhoc” specialist service.

For some, it could be a way to keep up in the face of competition from mail-order pharmacies like DocMorris.

"I see this as a survival model for local pharmacies and as an extension of their business model," says health researcher David Matusiewicz from the private University of Economics and Management in Essen.

But he also sees risks for pharmacies.

"If the business works well, the start-ups may eventually no longer act purely as platform brokers," says Matusiewicz.

Then the delivery services could try to set up their own trade.

"The pharmacies would then raise future competition for themselves."