How to start a medical store in Pakistan: licence & setup

Short answer: to open a medical store in Pakistan you need a drug sale licence from your province's drugs department, a qualified person (a pharmacist for a pharmacy, or a person holding a recognised pharmacy qualification for a medical store), a shop that meets the size and storage rules, and proper sale and purchase records. Apply through your district drug inspector or the provincial online portal.

The rules below are for Punjab, where most of our users are. Sindh, KP and Balochistan follow the same Drugs Act, with their own forms and fees, so check with your district drug inspector before you pay anything.

1. Decide: pharmacy or medical store

The licence category depends on who will run the counter.

• Pharmacy: run by a registered pharmacist (Category A). It can dispense more and is expected to keep stricter records.
• Medical store: run by a person holding a recognised pharmacy qualification (for example a pharmacy technician). Most neighbourhood shops are in this category.

The qualified person must actually be there when the shop is open. Hiring a name on paper and running the counter yourself is the most common reason shops are fined or sealed.

2. Get the shop ready

Punjab's procedure rules set a minimum covered area of about 96 square feet for a medical store, with enough height and width to work in, and storage that keeps medicines away from sunlight, dust and heat. You will need a fridge for insulin, vaccines and other cold items.

Before you sign the rent deed, check that the landlord will sign it in a form the drugs department accepts (an attested rent deed or ownership papers).

3. Papers you will usually need

Lists change, so treat this as a starting point and confirm with the drug inspector:

• CNIC copies of the owner and the qualified person (originals shown in person);
• the qualified person's degree or certificate and registration with the pharmacy council;
• an affidavit on stamp paper, attested as the department asks;
• the attested rent deed or ownership papers of the shop;
• the fee challan. Punjab's checklist (undated, so check the current amount) lists Rs 2,000 for a medical store licence and Rs 3,000 for a pharmacy.

The drug inspector visits the shop before the licence is issued. Keep the shelves, fridge and records ready for that visit.

4. Buy the first stock

Start with the medicines your area actually asks for. A clinic next door means its doctors' usual prescriptions; a residential street means fever, pain, stomach and cough medicines, ORS, baby products and first aid. Buy from licensed distributors only, and keep every bill: an inspector can ask where any box came from.

Ask each distributor for their credit days and return policy for short-expiry stock. That one question decides how much money you lose to expiry in the first year.

5. Records you must keep

• Purchase bills from licensed distributors, with batch numbers.
• Sale records, and for schedule (prescription-only) drugs, the doctor's name and the prescription.
• Expiry checks: expired medicine must be removed from sale and kept apart until it is returned or destroyed.

A paper register works, but it is slow at a busy counter. A medical store software keeps the batch and expiry of every box, sells the earliest expiry first, warns you before stock expires, and keeps the schedule-drug register with the doctor and a photo of the prescription.

6. Pricing and profit

Medicines have printed retail prices, so your profit is mostly the discount the distributor gives you, minus what expires and what goes on credit. Track three numbers every month: sales, money lost to expiry, and udhaar still outstanding. If expiry is more than a small fraction of sales, you are buying too much of slow items.

Checklist before opening day

• Licence issued and displayed in the shop.
• Qualified person's timing fixed and written down.
• Fridge running, with a thermometer.
• Every medicine entered with batch and expiry.
• A way to bill quickly and to print or WhatsApp the bill.

Start free to set up the store with batches, expiry and the schedule-drug register from day one.