Blinkit Piloting 10-Minute Medicine Delivery In Bengaluru

Quick commerce major Blinkit is piloting the delivery of prescription medicines in select parts of Bengaluru. With this, the platform has expanded its bouquet of offerings, which previously only included over-the-counter (OTC) drugs.

A perusal of the new feature by Inc42 revealed that Blinkit is now also selling antibiotics, eye drops, nasal sprays, ointments and antihistamines.

As part of the offering, Blinkit has also rolled out free doctor consultations after a customer places an order on the app. The free consultations can be availed if a user is unable to upload a prescription or if the uploaded prescription is “invalid”.

Inc42 has reached out to the company for a comment on the development. The story will be updated on receiving a response. 

YourStory was the first to report the development.

This comes at a time when Blinkit has been making aggressive moves in the healthtech space. Earlier this year, the quick commerce major rolled out 10-minute ambulances service in parts of Gurugram. 

Its parent Eternal’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said last week that Blinkit has scaled the number of ambulances in its kitty to 12 (“covering almost half” of the satellite town) from a mere five, when the service went live in January this year.

“Until today, we have responded to 594 calls, 50% of these critical emergencies. Today, our 12 ambulances across 6 depots reach patients within 10 minutes, 83% of the time,” said Goyal in a post on X on July 24. 

He also said that the company is now building an in-house paramedic training program to complement its quick ambulance service. 

The Quick Pill

Having already disrupted the grocery and essentials segments, quick commerce players are now looking to conquer other frontiers, especially essential services such as healthcare.

While players like Zepto, Swiggy’s Instamart and Blinkit already already offer OTC medicines, they are now pushing the pedal on facilitating quick delivery of prescription-based medicines.

With the latest development, Blinkit has become the latest quick commerce platform to roll out 10-minute medicine deliveries. In April this year, PhonePe’s ecommerce platform Pincode rolled out a 10-minute medicine delivery service in three cities. Swiggy also reportedly partnered with digital pharmacy PharmEasy in October last year to deliver medicines in 10 minutes. 

Previously, there were also reports that Flipkart Minutes was looking to tap into sister company SastaSundar to foray into medicine deliveries. In addition, previous reports also suggested that Tata 1mg (in partnership with BigBasket) and Apollo 24/7 were in various stages of piloting instant medicine delivery.

Besides, a new band of startups are also emerging like Plazza and Farmako to offer medicine delivery in under 30 minutes. In February, healthtech startup Zeno Health also raised $25 Mn in its Series C round and subsequently rolled out a 50-minute medicine delivery service in Mumbai.