Pharm & You launches its first pilot pharmacy in Toulouse
Founded by Stéphane Robert, the Toulouse brand Pharm & You is launching a new pharmacy concept and preparing to raise €10 million.
It is this Thursday, October 13 that the first Toulouse pilot pharmacy of the Pharm & You brand will be entrusted. Installed on Chemin de la Terrasse near the Paved Side, it embodies the pharmacy model that Stéphane Robert wants to duplicate. This Toulousain, former developer of the famous Pharmacie Lafayette brand, created his own network in 2015 but in a different way. “I wanted to create a network of independent, branded pharmacies that turned away from low-cost drugstores to focus on what pharmacists do best: health advice,” he explains.
Putting the pharmacist back at the heart of the pharmacy
The new Firmis pharmacy in Toulouse is therefore part of a medical center with three general practitioners, a dentist, a nurse’s office and even a planned emergency care centre. “The State and Social Security want to increase prevention. The pharmacist has been one of the pivots in the Covid crisis and has seen his role become central. This will be even more the case tomorrow and this is what our pharmacy concept offers,” sums up Stéphane Robert. In these pharmacies whose owner remains the pharmacist, the patient therefore finds a health center with an impedance meter which measures the fat mass, prevention services in the cabin for vaccinations, hearing aids, vision checks, etc.
30 pharmacies in France
Today, the Pharm & You network has around thirty pharmacies in France (Montauban, Albi, Bayonne, Miremont near Auterive, etc.) which generate a business volume of €70 million per year. For the Toulouse brand, this “health” orientation of pharmacies is also synonymous with economic profitability. Today, a pharmacy generates 80% of its activity with prescription drugs and 20% in parapharmacy. “By strengthening the health division of pharmacies, Pharm & You allows the pharmacist to generate high added value and profitability indicators higher than the market” assures the Toulousain.
A fundraising of 10 M€
A model that applies to pharmacies of less than 150 m2 up to 650m2 for the largest in Dax. To accelerate the distribution of the model, Pharm & You will launch next January a fundraising of 3 M€ then 7 M€ in a second phase. Fifteen sales people will be hired to grow the network. The objective is to reach 100 pharmacies within two years then 150 before having 300 pharmacies under the brand by 2029.
A former Lafayette pharmacy
Stéphane Robert, founder of Pharm & You, knows the world of pharmacies well since he accompanied the development of another network in Toulouse: the Lafayette pharmacies. Founded by Toulousain Lionel Masson, but sold to investment funds, this network now has 650 pharmacies.