With the country’s organised retail market growing at 15-16 per cent and big players entering the segment, over three lakh pan-India retail outlets have planned to create a common brand in the next few years under the umbrella of the All-India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD). Existing members of the 52-year-old association have formed a private limited company — All Indian Origin of Chemists & Distributors Ltd — to facilitate pharma retailers take on competition.

AIOCD chairman said, “The idea behind forming this company is to organise small retailers in such a way that they will be able to protect their business at a time when big firms were making inroads into the sector and started dominating the sector in some way or the other.” Intensifying the competition, big organized medicine retailers such as Apollo Pharmacy of the Apollo group, 98.4 and Body Shop and others have started setting up stores across the country. Fortis and Reliance Retail are also eyeing this segment. AIOCD, which claims to have 5.5 lakh members and 60,000 stockists, aims to provide single point end-to-end supply chain services to the pharmaceutical and FMCG industries with an array of value-added services.