Belgian online pharmacy Newpharma goes South

Belgian online pharmacy Newpharma wants to double its turnover every three years, and looks to Southern Europe for growth as those markets are not mature yet.

Awaking market

In its eleventh year in business, the company from Liège will reach a 100 million euro turnover for the first time. Still there are ambitions aplenty: the company succeeded in doubling its turnover every three years, and CEO Jerôme Gobbesso tells Belgian newspaper De Tijd that he wants to keep up that speed.

Gobbesso seeks further growth in Spain and Italy, where online barely makes out one percent of the pharmacy market. There is no dominant online player in that market, meaning there is a lot of potential for Newpharma, a company which is already active in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Newpharma, which is part of the Colruyt empire since 2017, is also thinking of opening physical ‘parapharmacies’ in or near supermarkets of that chain – similar to what its main competitor Medi-Market is doing near Carrefour stores.