According to Dr. Szabolcs Lázár, managing director of Patika Management, networks operating with modern tools can provide answers to the market’s challenges. The company’s two nationwide franchise networks, Alma Gyógyszertárak and Gyöngy Patikák, together represent one-third of the retail pharmaceutical market. Network cooperation creates the opportunity for independent, privately owned pharmacies to remain competitive despite strict regulations and shrinking margins.
What characterises the domestic retail pharmacy sector today, and what makes this sector unique?
Pharmacies operate in a strictly regulated environment: they are majority-owned by pharmacists and are under professional pharmaceutical management. This structure ensures that professional decisions take precedence, which is in the public interest. At the same time, one of the defining characteristics of the Hungarian pharmacy retail sector is that pharmacists must perform dual roles – as healthcare professionals and as entrepreneurs. While their training prepares them for the former, in everyday operations they must also handle management, commercial, and marketing communication tasks, in an increasingly competitive market environment. This is a serious challenge even for those with a business mindset. This is where we can lend a helping hand: we support our partners in becoming successful in business as well, alongside their professional dedication.
Which factors most influence the profitability and competitiveness of pharmacies?
First of all, a key sector feature is that pharmacy loyalty is predominantly based on trust. This stems from the traditional pharmaceutical competencies related to healing and health preservation, which represent both responsibility and opportunity. The ability to gain trust based on professional competence is a significant comparative advantage within the pharmacy market and also against non-pharmacy competitors. This is a necessary, but unfortunately often insufficient condition for success in the domestic environment. The regressive margin system in the prescription segment exerts constant pressure, which can only be compensated for by boosting revenue in the free-pricing portfolio. Growth today can primarily be achieved through category management optimized by product mix, opening up the customer area – meaning creating shelf accessibility – and effective communication.
The heart of good category management is a professional product strategy, which must take care of both the procurement aspect and the marketing communication built on it. Pharmacies would find it difficult to implement this independently due to high acquisition and operating costs; therefore, network backing typically provides the solution, ensuring the necessary expertise and the advantages derived from economies of scale.
An increasing competitiveness challenge for the sector is that the non-pharmaceutical portion of the portfolio, vitamins, dietary supplements, dermocosmetics, and lifestyle products, is also available in drugstores, discount shops, and hypermarkets. These are typically well-capitalized multinational chains that use the most advanced retail and marketing communication tools to attract customers. The pharmacy community, mostly made up of micro-enterprises, already has a significant competitive disadvantage compared to them. Given that technology is rapidly shaping consumer habits, networks capable of making know-how and new technologies available to their members will play an even more decisive role in the future. Only this way can pharmacies remain competitive in the long term.
What are the advantages of franchise networks, and how do they differ from each other?
The essence of our network model is that it preserves pharmacists’ autonomy while the central management base provides important advantages such as centralised purchasing support, unified brand communication, loyalty programs, business reporting, and nationwide consultancy. In practice, each of our partners benefits from purchasing discounts covering more than five thousand products and ongoing multi-channel promotional communication. In our pharmacies with unified design and open customer spaces, we also offer category management, local POS promotion, phase-out and seasonal management services to our partners.
Differences between networks can generally be found in the presence of service elements, the depth of support, brand value, and the degree of customizability for each pharmacy. In the case of the Alma and Gyöngy networks, for example, most services are optional; in the digital customer system, pharmacies can independently and quickly create tailored promotions and deliver them to their customers at no extra cost. This is particularly attractive to pharmacists.
What unique features do the Alma and Gyöngy franchises have, and what advantages do they offer member pharmacies?
The Alma and Gyöngy networks offer domestically developed modular systems: from full-service packages to program-level participation, we provide several entry levels, ensuring that each pharmacy receives support tailored to its own goals. With the Alma and Gyöngy Premium networks, we represent the strength of more than 700 pharmacies in the market, which provides exceptionally strong bargaining positions and representation opportunities towards partners and distributors.
Both networks also lead the way in innovation and digitalization. We were the first in the market to introduce digital loyalty programs using our own mobile application and a discount system suited to modern consumer expectations. The digital customer base of member pharmacies has been growing dynamically for the second consecutive year, and the number of purchases linked to our loyalty programs now exceeds 200,000 per month. This also proves that everyday customers not only welcome but expect innovation from pharmacies.
Today, membership in the Alma and Gyöngy Premium networks is not only a form of economic cooperation but a strategic partnership that enables pharmacies to operate stably, efficiently, and with professional independence even in a rapidly changing market environment. The Alma and Gyöngy Premium networks represent this approach: the balance between professional freedom and modern business support, ensuring stability and commercial success.
This article was first published in the Pharma Industry Review 2025 / 2. print issue.
Producing journalism that is worthy of the name is a costly business. For over 30 years, the publishers, editors and reporters of the Budapest Business Journal have striven to bring you business news that works, information that you can trust, that is factual, accurate and presented without fear or favor.Newspaper organizations across the globe have struggled to find a business model that allows them to continue to excel, without compromising their ability to perform. Most recently, some have experimented with the idea of involving their most important stakeholders, their readers.
We would like to offer that same opportunity to our readers. We would like to invite you to help us deliver the quality business journalism you require. Hit our Support the BBJ button and you can choose the how much and how often you send us your contributions.
