In Nigeria, the most dangerous symptom of a broken pharmaceutical supply chain is not a shortage, but a surplus of the wrong thing. An estimated one in ten medicines in circulation is substandard or falsified, a public health crisis that erodes trust and costs lives long before a patient ever reaches a hospital bed. GetMedford, a Yola-based startup founded in 2023, is attempting a structural fix, not with a novel molecule, but with a marketplace designed to reroute the flow of authentic drugs from verified source to final user.
The pharmacy-as-anchor wedge
GetMedford's strategy hinges on a dual-sided platform, a model that treats the fragmented network of local pharmacies and hospitals not as competitors, but as its primary wedge into the market. On one side, it aggregates demand from over 100 partner hospitals and pharmacies, allowing them to order in bulk directly from manufacturers approved by Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) [Punch Nigeria]. On the other, it operates a direct-to-consumer app and website, offering home delivery of those same verified medicines to individual patients. The bet is that by anchoring its supply chain with institutional buyers, it can achieve the scale and logistics efficiency needed to make authentic drugs reliably available and affordable for everyone, one delivery at a time.
A founder's prescription for trust
The company's approach is deeply informed by the background of its founder, Adamu Muhammad. A pharmacist with over 15 years of experience in healthcare logistics across roles at Helium Health and others, Muhammad has spent his career inside the very system GetMedford aims to repair [RocketReach, TechParley]. This isn't a technologist's outside-in disruption play. It is a practitioner's effort to apply software to known, tangible bottlenecks: opaque wholesale distribution, rampant counterfeiting, and inventory mismatches that leave essential medicines out of stock in the communities that need them most. The technical execution falls to co-founder and CTO Habibou Moussa, a backend specialist tasked with building the integrations and APIs that connect manufacturers, pharmacies, and a last-mile delivery network [Habibou Moussa LinkedIn].
Traction and the road to scale
Early signs suggest the model is finding purchase. Since its inception, GetMedford reports serving over 1,200 individual customers and securing those partnerships with more than 100 hospitals and pharmacies [Punch Nigeria]. The company emerged from the pan-African MEST accelerator program, which provided initial backing and mentorship [F6S]. Its stated roadmap points toward geographic expansion within Nigeria and the integration of AI-driven demand forecasting to optimize inventory and prevent stockouts,a logical, if ambitious, next step for a logistics-heavy business [Punch Nigeria].
The competitive and operational landscape, however, demands a clear-eyed view. GetMedford is not the first to see the opportunity in Nigeria's pharmaceutical supply chain.
- Established competition. Players like DrugStoc and Lifestores Pharmacy have built significant B2B wholesale businesses, meaning GetMedford must differentiate on service, reliability, or its integrated B2C offering to win pharmacy partners.
- The counterfeit economy. The illicit market is entrenched and cheap. Competing on price with falsified drugs is impossible; the value proposition must rest entirely on guaranteed authenticity and reliability, which requires relentless verification and supply chain control.
- Execution complexity. Managing a two-sided marketplace, a logistics network, and sensitive pharmaceutical inventory is a formidable operational challenge that scales in difficulty with geography.
The company's success will be measured not by app downloads, but by its ability to consistently deliver a specific class of goods: essential medicines for chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes, and malaria, where interruption in treatment carries severe consequences. For the patient managing diabetes in Abuja or a parent seeking antimalarials for a child in Yola, the current standard of care is a fraught calculation. It involves navigating a patchwork of local pharmacies, relying on word-of-mouth recommendations for trustworthy sellers, and often paying a premium for the peace of mind that a medicine is genuine. Stockouts are common, and the burden of verification falls entirely on the individual. GetMedford's entire premise is to absorb that burden into its platform, making authenticity a default feature rather than a lucky find.
Sources
- [Punch Nigeria] GetMedford deploys tech to boost genuine medicines access | https://punchng.com/getmedford-deploys-tech-to-boost-genuine-medicines-access/
- [RocketReach] Adamu Muhammad Email & Phone Number | GetMedford Co-Founder and Chief executive officer Contact Information | https://rocketreach.co/adamu-muhammad-email_507105478
- [TechParley] Adamu Muhammad’s GetMedford Tackles Nigeria’s Counterfeit Medicine Crisis with Tech | https://techparley.com/adamu-muhammads-getmedford-tackles-nigerias-counterfeit-medicine-crisis-with-tech/
- [Habibou Moussa LinkedIn] Habibou Moussa - Co-founder & CTO at GetMedford Inc | https://www.linkedin.com/in/habibou-moussa/
- [F6S] GetMedford Inc. Company Profile | https://www.f6s.com/company/getmedford-inc