Pharmacy Daily | Medlab steers clear of CWH

AUSTRALIAN listed nutraceutical developer, Medlab, is steering clear of discount pharmacies with its new range of patented practitioner-only products.

Speaking at an investor update event in Sydney last week, MedLab CEO and Founder, Sean Hall, said the company was experiencing rapid growth following the signing of deals with pharmacy wholesaler, Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (PD 31 Jan), and the TerryWhite Chemmart banner group (PD 22 Feb), in the first quarter of 2019.

"We're working with two very good [pharmacy] banner groups here in Australia and we've stayed clear of the more notorious deep discounters to unlock the value of the research we're doing," he said.

Since the company officially launched its nutraceutical range, which includes 34 formulations, at APP in March, the business has seen a surge in sales, generating monthly revenue of more than $1 million for the first time in Apr.

Several of the items are patent-protected, with Hall saying they were scientifically validated, innovative and "practitioner only" to provide therapeutic support for a range of conditions, identifying community pharmacy as a key platform for Medlab.

"We've been lucky enough to have a number of pharmacists who've been trialling the products and given us feedback... some of these pharmacists have recognised my name from previous years, so there's still a connotation of 'Sean Hall the developer of Bioceuticals that sold to Blackmores in 2012', and we're leveraging that," he said.

"By [being] practitioner-only, we're keeping it out of the general over-the-counter deep discount club," he added.

Medlab Chief Financial Officer, Alan Dworkin, told investors that the expansion into pharmacy had been rapid, going from 500 stores earlier this year to more than 3,000 in Apr, noting the brands had "launched into API and Symbion [banner groups]", but "Chemist Warehouse is not one of them".