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Table of Content
Blog Summary:
Medicine delivery apps have transformed the pharmaceutical industry by simplifying the process of ordering medicines anytime, anywhere. This blog is a comprehensive guide for healthcare businesses, pharmacy owners, and any healthcare service provider looking to develop a similar app. It covers the key features, development costs, and the entire process of creating a medical app and leveraging its benefits.
Table of Content
Imagine visiting pharmacies with doctor prescriptions in hand and waiting in line to place orders, hoping that their medications are not out of stock. This routine not only wastes precious time but adds unnecessary stress, especially when timely medication is crucial.
What if healthcare providers, pharmacies, and delivery partners collaborated to create a digital solution to bridge this gap? Medicine Delivery App Development enables you to turn your customers’ smartphones into mini-pharmacies and offer a convenient solution for delivering medication right to their doorsteps.
In this blog, we’ll explore how investing in this digital healthcare solution can prove to be a gold mine for healthcare business owners and delivery partners looking to expand their presence in the industry.
The market growth over the years will see even more transformation, leading to increased consumer demand for accessible healthcare solutions.
Let’s take a look at a few interesting figures, current trends, and key players in the market:
According to Verified Market Research, the global e-pharmacy market was valued at USD 80.96 billion until 2023 and is expected to touch USD 242.5 billion by 2031.
The United States leads the industry and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7% from 2024 to 2031. In 2024, it emerged as the leader in generating revenue from medicine delivery apps, with USD 387.3 billion.
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global online drug and medicine delivery market is anticipated to grow from USD 46.23 billion to USD 63.38 billion by 2032.
Similarly, Data Bridge Market Research reports that the global medical apps market had more than 3,50,000 apps in 2021 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 28.4% from 2022 to 2030.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry has been continuously tapping into telemedicine and instant medicine deliveries. Some apps also offer same-day medicine deliveries while providing personal medication management features.
IoT and AI emerged as the two revolutionary technologies changing the landscape of healthcare app development. Some of the key players in this segment include Garmin Connect and Google Fit, which are transforming health and fitness tracking.
With chatbots becoming more mainstream, online medical delivery apps now allow patients to receive only the right medicines at the right time. Some of the top medicine delivery apps have also emerged, like Amwell, AssistRx 1mg, NetMeds, Pillpack, Medlife, and NowRx.
Medicine apps are mobile applications that make it convenient for customers to produce prescriptions and order medicines online. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, these apps became immensely popular since they simplified the process of accessing medical care anywhere, anytime.
Especially helpful for managing chronic conditions, medicine delivery apps emerged as hassle-free, quickly accessible, and prompt solutions to meet health needs.
Medication and healthcare essentials delivered right to the doorstep, secured online payment gateways, and real-time order tracking made these apps highly essential for customers living at any location without visiting pharmacies.
Medicine delivery app development opens many opportunities for healthcare professionals, providers, clinics, hospitals, pharmacy owners, and entrepreneurs. Here are a few features that make this segment extremely high in demand:
Let us help you build a medicine delivery app that seamlessly connects patients to medications.
The three most fundamental features of medicine delivery apps are placing an order, secure transactions, and timely deliveries. Medicine apps work through an intuitive interface to enable these functions.
Here are the key aspects of workflow:
The process starts with users downloading the app and browsing the vast catalog of medicines after creating an account. While browsing and searching, users can also view dosage details and access information about medicines, such as ingredients, effects, side effects, etc.
At this point, while users can place orders for over-the-counter medicines immediately, some medicines require them to upload doctor’s prescriptions. Once they upload the prescriptions, the app verifies them before users can add medicines to their carts and make online payments.
Once the user places an order, the medicine delivery app contacts the nearest pharmacy that has the requested items in stock. Pharmacy management systems are integrated with the app to manage these orders and track stock in real time.
The integration also allows users to set reminders for refills while placing orders. Users can then make payments with secure online payment gateways. The app ensures their financial details are safe and protected for successful order fulfillment.
The final step is making timely deliveries by coordinating with the delivery partners to pick up medicines and reach customers on time. For this, the app integrates with a network of pharmacies, logistics partners, and delivery personnel to track their inventory and order in real time.
As an advanced function, the apps leverage GPS tracking for real-time updates and arrival times. Some apps also partner with hospitals, healthcare providers, professionals, and doctors for precise medical guidance and consultations.
With the growing demand for on-demand apps, users who live in remote areas or are homebound can easily access medicines as and when they need them. Medicine delivery apps can also benefit locations where there aren’t enough doctors, hospitals, or pharmacies.
Let’s understand why this can turn out to be a potentially rewarding investment through an example:
Suppose you have an emerging healthcare business in the Southern United States. You want to develop a medicine delivery app that can immensely benefit the following users:
Due to regular medications and doctor visits, they can’t visit pharmacies frequently and have to rely on home deliveries.
They need frequent medication refills due to conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.
They live in remote locations with limited access to healthcare.
Your business has to comply with stringent regulations to develop a medical delivery app in the South U.S. region:
Here’s how medicine delivery app development services can help you tap into the growing need for on-demand services and generate revenue opportunities:
Developing a medicine delivery app will ensure the timely delivery of sensitive medical products without delays. It will ultimately help your business build partnerships with delivery providers across the region.
Having a digital delivery system will enable you to monitor inventory levels in real-time. It will eventually help create a balanced supply chain by preventing over- and under-stocking.
Building a medical app will secure users’ sensitive personal health information (PHI) and payment details.
Medicine delivery app development brings together convenience and accessibility to meet modern demands. Traditional, physically located local pharmacies are mostly a phone call away and operate only during specific hours.
Here’s how your healthcare business can bring convenience to the doorsteps of your users with a medicine delivery app:
Problem: Many areas either don’t have pharmacies, are out of stock for medications, or don’t provide delivery services. In other cases, users have mobility issues, live in rural areas, and even suffer from chronic illnesses. With a few clicks, users can order medicines without visiting a pharmacy.
Solution: Developing an app can enhance accessibility and encourage more users to order medicines because of easy access. The apps also allow them to avoid missing their doses or delaying their treatments.
Problem: Local pharmacies rely on manual order processing, where customers visit the store, wait for a pharmacist to check stock, and verify prescriptions. High traffic and limited working hours also make it difficult for customers to pick up medications at their convenience.
Solution: With medicine delivery app development, businesses can automate these processes. Users can upload prescriptions and even select items before the app verifies their prescriptions. Integration with pharmacies allows them to process payments, schedule, and track deliveries, and reduce waiting times to get medicines delivered.
Stand out in the healthcare industry and meet the needs of your customers and pharmacies.
The business model you choose decides the number of features of a medicine delivery app. You could either have a business model that expands your current offline pharmacy to the online world or an aggregator app that acts as an intermediary between suppliers and customers.
Keep in mind that you would need an app for customers, pharmacies, admins, and delivery partners. Here are some common features for each of them:
What it Does: Allow your users to easily navigate between different features with an intuitive and clean design.
How it Benefits: It enhances user experience, reduces frustration, and improves retention with seamless transactions and fewer support inquiries.
What it Does: Allow your users to upload prescriptions directly through pharmacists for in-app verification.
How it Benefits: It ensures medications are accurate and compliant to reduce risks as it minimizes manual verification.
What it Does: It enables your users to track the delivery of their orders in real-time until they reach them.
How it Benefits: It increases transparency since the users are always updated about the whereabouts of their orders and status, reducing order-related issues.
What it Does: It allows your users to make online payments via credit and debit cards, net banking, e-wallets, etc.
How it Benefits: The feature encourages users to make payments confidently as they are secured and encrypted, aiding fewer payment disputes and reliable experiences.
What it Does: Connect your users with local pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, and providers for accuracy in medical prescription and virtual consultations.
How it Benefits: It allows your business to provide a wide range of medicines and essential healthcare products, improving service quality.
What They Do: The live chat system allows users to get assistance as and when needed, while personalized reminders notify them of confirmed appointments, orders, deliveries, and refills.
How They Benefit: Improve medication adherence and reduce churn rates by increasing user engagement and gaining repeat customers.
The development process of a medicine delivery app starts with a tailored approach unique to each healthcare business. Let’s understand how the process unfolds from defining a niche to launching the app through an example of a healthcare business in the South US region.
Niche Planning: Your target audience is the elderly, chronically ill, and users with limited mobility. Your objectives are to deliver prescription-based medications and health essentials to patients in rural and semi-urban areas.
Challenges: Few nearby pharmacies, long distances, limited transportation.
Expert Tip: Engage with local communities and healthcare providers in surveys or feedback sessions.
Real-life Inspiration: Capsule focuses on delivering prescription medications to users in metro areas with similar pain points.
Analysis: Healthcare data privacy has stringent privacy laws, such as the FDA and HIPAA, for dispensing medication in the South US.
Feature Planning: Define user behavior based on regulations, competition, and data protocols to solve pain points. Prioritize medical app features like prescription uploads, verification, GPS tracking, refill reminders, and multi-language support.
Expert Tip: Build an easily navigated UI with large icons, a minimal layout with voice search, and high-contrast options.
Real-life Inspiration: GoodRx and PharmEasy are two popular apps known for their user-friendly interface for medicine deliveries.
Backend and Frontend: Choose Node.js and Express.js for server and notifications. React Native is a top choice for cross-platform apps. MySQL with Firebase is a powerful combination for database handling.
Expert Tip: Partner up with a medicine delivery app development company to help you choose the technologies that support quick load times and security.
Real-life Inspiration: Medisafe effectively uses a similar tech stack for seamless real-time updates. Uber Health is another example of real-time tracking of time-sensitive deliveries.
Objective: Partner with local pharmacies and healthcare providers for rural zones with limited healthcare. Integrate your app with pharmacy management systems and other inventory management systems.
Real-life Inspiration: The CVS Pharmacy app connects users with local pharmacies, automating healthcare services by maintaining patients’ health records.
Expert Tip: Build strong relationships with pharmacy chains to negotiate better integration terms.
Challenges: Rural areas of the South US need more network connectivity, which requires testing app performance on low bandwidth.
Solution: Conduct rigorous QA testing under different network conditions and on various devices. Follow up with ongoing maintenance and support to handle regional challenges.
Real-life Inspiration: ZocDoc and Walgreens have been specifically launched to solve regional challenges that address local demands with accessible network performance
The cost to develop a single-version medicine delivery app, whether a client app, admin app, delivery partner app, or pharmacy app, usually starts at USD 12,000 and can go up to USD 45,000.
Here are some things to consider:
Here’s a tentative breakdown of the development cost:
| Chosen Platform | Single Platform USD 20,000 -USD 30,000 |
Cross-platform USD 25,000 -USD 50,000 |
| UI/UX | Basic USD 8,000 |
Advanced USD 15,000 |
| User Profile | Basic USD 2,000 |
Advanced USD 5,000 |
| Management and Scheduling | Basic USD 9,000 – USD 17,000 |
Advanced USD 20,000 – USD 30,000 |
| Order Management | Basic USD 4,000 – USD 7,000 |
Advanced USD 8,000 – USD 14,000 |
| Payment Integration | Basic USD 2,000 – USD 5,000 |
Advanced USD 7,000 – USD 14,000 |
| Pharmacy and Vendor Integration | Basic prescription upload USD 7,000 – USD 15,000 |
Advanced scanning USD 12,000 – USD 18,000 |
| Doctor Consultations | Basic telemedicine USD 7,000 – USD 10,000 |
Advanced consultations USD 15,000 – USD 35,000 |
| Data Analytics and Reporting | Basic USD 3,000 – USD 5,000 |
Advanced analytics USD 8,000 – USD 15,000 |
| Medical Compliance | Basic with HIPAA USD 5,000 – USD 11,000 |
Advanced USD 14,000 – USD 25,000 |
| Hosting and Maintenance | Basic USD 3,000 – USD 15,000 |
Advanced USD 12,000 – USD 40,000 |
| Customer Support | Basic USD 4,000 – USD 6,000 |
Advanced (AI-driven) USD 7,000 – USD 12,000 |
Check out how we developed DocTalk, an advanced AI-powered healthcare application that controls health checkups with personalized prescriptions.
Today’s healthcare market is digital and thrives on convenience, which is the ultimate goal of any business looking to build customer loyalty. Developing a medicine delivery app can let your business bring the pharmacy directly to your users’ doorsteps.
Timely and reliable access to medication can become invaluable for customers living in remote areas who have limited mobility, complex schedules, or need routine prescriptions. Teaming up with an expert medicine delivery app development company will enable you to gain the required knowledge and insights for delivering an efficient and secure user experience.
With Moon Technolabs, you can empower your healthcare business with a seamless, robust, and user-focused platform. Contact our experts to drive growth in a highly competitive market.
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Jayanti Katariya is the CEO of Moon Technolabs, a fast-growing IT solutions provider, with 18+ years of experience in the industry. Passionate about developing creative apps from a young age, he pursued an engineering degree to further this interest. Under his leadership, Moon Technolabs has helped numerous brands establish their online presence and he has also launched an invoicing software that assists businesses to streamline their financial operations.
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