Product

Celebrating one year of Phlo

December 22, 2020
6 minute read
Mairead Quigley

Phlo Digital Pharmacy launched in November 2019, driven by a vision to change the future of healthcare in the UK by enabling easier access to medication for everyone.

It has been an incredible year for the team at Phlo. Like any start-up business, we have had our fair share of wins and losses, but we have achieved some phenomenal things together this year and we are very proud of how far Phlo has come. We thought we would take a look back at the previous 12 months and some of our biggest milestones and achievements.

Our Journey So Far

2019

The Phlo teams’ number one priority has always been to build a first-in-class digital pharmacy service that our patients love. This meant that we doubled down and focused on building one of the most technologically advanced pharmacy services in the UK. We achieved this by implementing world class engineering standards combined with a relentless focus on the patient experience. It’s safe to say that we learned a lot during this period!  

In October 2019, we secured and set up our first Pharmacy dispensing unit in central London. In just a few months, our Pharmacy team had outgrown that space and we needed more room! We bought another unit in May 2020 and another unit again in August 2020 to allow us to scale and grow our Pharmacy operations.  

In November 2019, we completed a soft launch of Phlo. During this period, we took vital patient feedback on board and focused on iterative product development, developing new features and functionality that allows our patients to have the best possible experience.

The focus that we continue to place on building an incredible, innovative digital pharmacy service means that we have seen our patient numbers grow 40% month on month, something we are incredibly proud of.  

Achievements in 2020

March saw our first major milestone in 2020, as Phlo secured its first Private Skincare Partnership.  We were also so excited to see our NHS patient numbers rising steadily and experience some of our first patient reviews of Phlo. The overwhelmingly positive response from our patients validated our vision, hard work, and an approach that focuses on providing a first-in-class pharmacy experience.  

March was also the month when the UK went into its first lockdown, as a response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. During this time, demand for our services increased dramatically, yet again highlighting the need for a remote, safer and more convenient alternative to the conventional brick-and-mortar pharmacy service.  

In April 2020, Phlo secured a partnership with Babylon, the UK-Leading telemedicine provider as their official Pharmacy partner. This was a monumental partnership in the UK’s digital healthcare sector and most definitely a highlight of our company’s journey so far.  

Following the first wave of COVID-19 in the UK, Phlo responded by tripling its pharmacy capacity by May, and by June, we had already serviced and helped over 2000 patients.  

As our patient numbers grew, so did the amount of feedback we were receiving, which remained overwhelmingly positive and catapulted us as one of the top-rated online pharmacies on Trustpilot by July.

In October 2020, with over 4000+ patients serviced, Phlo launched the UK’s first-ever Digital Pharmacy Crowdfunding campaign, successfully raising over £2.1M and concluding in mid-November.  

November 2020 marked yet another highlight for the team, as we were accepted to the highly prestigious DigitalHealth.London Accelerator Programme 2020/21. The accelerator programme is designed to help speed up the adoption of technology across the NHS, and the companies selected each year are considered to have the highest potential in transforming London’s NHS and social care services.  

Where We Are Today

Today, Phlo has serviced nearly 10,000 patients, and our team has grown by 94% in 2020 alone.

Our sights are now set on expanding our real-time, same-day delivery service across major cities in England and the launch of our native iOS and Android apps. Our long-term mission remains the same: to shape the future of pharmacy in the UK.  

On behalf of everyone at Phlo, we thank you for your continued support and the trust you have placed in us, and we can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together in 2021 and beyond.  

Would you like to try Phlo for yourself? Switch to Phlo today and find out why our patients have never looked back.  

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