How to Open a Medical Store in Pakistan: Licence, Setup and First Stock

If you want to open a medical store in Pakistan, the licence is the part everyone worries about, but it is only the first step. The stores that do well also get three other things right from day one: the location, the first stock order and a system for batches, expiry and credit.

This guide covers all of it in order. Rules and fees change and differ by province, so confirm the current details with your provincial drug licensing office or portal before you apply.

Pharmacy or medical store: which licence do you need?

Pakistani drug rules separate a pharmacy from a medical store:

• A pharmacy is run under a qualified pharmacist (B.Pharm or Pharm.D) registered with the provincial pharmacy council. It can do more, including dispensing against prescriptions.
• A medical store sells medicines under the supervision of a qualified person registered with the pharmacy council, and has a narrower scope.

In Punjab, for example, the Punjab Drugs Rules, 2007 set out a separate licence form for each. Ask your district drug inspector which category fits your plan and which qualification your qualified person needs. Getting this wrong is the most common reason applications are delayed.

Step 1: Find your qualified person

You cannot get a drug sale licence without a qualified person who agrees to supervise sales at your store. If you are not qualified yourself, you will need to hire one, and their registration, degree and consent letter become part of your application.

Choose carefully. If that person leaves, you must apply to change the qualified person on the licence, so a stable arrangement saves you trouble later.

Step 2: Pick the right location

Location decides most of your sales. Look for:

• Clinics and doctors nearby. Prescriptions walk out of a clinic and into the closest medical store.
• A hospital or lab within sight, but check how many stores already compete for it.
• Residential streets with families who will become regular, monthly customers.
• Space that meets the rules. Punjab's rules set a minimum floor area for a medical store (96 square feet, with minimum width and height of 8 feet). Check your province's requirement before you sign a lease.

Ask the landlord for a lease or ownership papers in a form the licensing office accepts. You will need them for the application.

Step 3: Apply for the drug sale licence

Most provinces now take applications online:

• Punjab: through the Chief Drug Controller's Centralized Drug Sale Licensing (CDSL) system.
• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: through the provincial health department's online drug licence portal.
• Islamabad: through the ICT Health Department's pharmacy services and drug control office.
• Sindh and Balochistan: through the provincial health department's drug control office. Ask locally for the current process.

Typical documents include:

1. CNIC of the owner (or company registration papers).
2. The qualified person's degree, pharmacy council registration and consent to supervise.
3. Lease or ownership papers for the premises.
4. A plan or photos of the shop, with its measurements.
5. The fee receipt. Fees differ by province and by licence type, so check the current amount on the official portal and pay only the government fee there.

After you apply, a drug inspector visits the shop to check the premises, storage and qualified person. Once approved, the licence is issued and must be renewed on time.

Step 4: Set up the shop for medicine

Medicine needs more care than ordinary goods. Before your first delivery, arrange:

• Shelving with room to keep the earliest expiry at the front.
• A refrigerator for items that must be kept cold, such as insulin and some vaccines and eye drops, with a thermometer you actually check.
• Air conditioning or good ventilation, because many medicines must be stored below a set temperature.
• A separate, labelled place for expired or damaged stock, away from the counter.
• A counter computer, an 80mm thermal receipt printer and a barcode scanner if you plan to use software.

Step 5: Open accounts with distributors

You will buy from several distributors, because each one carries different companies. When you meet their sales reps, ask:

• Credit terms. How many days do you get to pay, and what is the credit limit for a new store?
• Schemes and bonus stock. Useful on fast movers, risky on slow ones.
• Near-expiry returns. Will they take back stock close to expiry, and how many months before the date?
• Delivery days. A distributor that delivers daily lets you keep less stock.

Keep a supplier ledger from the first bill. Knowing exactly what you owe each distributor is what keeps your credit with them.

Step 6: Order your first stock carefully

New owners often spend too much on the first order. A better approach:

1. Start with fast-moving essentials: common painkillers, fever and cold medicines, antacids, ORS, vitamins, first aid and the antibiotics doctors near you prescribe most.
2. Ask the nearby doctors and your distributor's rep what moves in your area.
3. Buy small quantities of slow movers, even if a bigger order comes with a scheme.
4. Check every expiry date on delivery and refuse short-dated stock you did not agree to.

Most branded medicines leave the retailer a margin of around 15% of the printed price, so profit comes from steady volume and from not losing stock to expiry, not from a few big sales.

Step 7: Put your systems in place before day one

The habits you start with are the ones you keep. From the first day:

• Record the batch and expiry of every item when stock arrives.
• Sell the earliest expiry first. Our weekly routine for medicine expiry shows how to keep this simple.
• Keep a credit book for regular customers and clinics, with a limit for each.
• Check your gross profit, not just total sales, at the end of each day or week.

You can do this on paper, but software saves hours once you have a few hundred items. If you are choosing one, our buyer's checklist for pharmacy software lists what to test in a free trial.

How Barkat helps a new medical store

We build Barkat, so read this section as our own view. Barkat's pharmacy edition is built for a store's first day:

• Add stock quickly: start typing a generic name and Barkat's catalog of generic medicines fills in the name, strength and form, or import your list from a CSV file.
• Batch and expiry on every item, with FEFO at the counter and an expiry screen that shows what expires soon.
• Customer and supplier ledgers with credit limits and one-tap WhatsApp reminders that you send yourself.
• Gross profit reports from the purchase cost of each batch.
• 80mm receipts and barcode scanning, and a desktop app for Windows and Mac that keeps the counter billing during an internet outage.

One plan, every feature, with a 7-day free trial and no card needed. See the pharmacy features or pricing.

Checklist before you open a medical store in Pakistan

• Qualified person agreed, with documents
• Shop that meets the size and storage rules
• Drug sale licence approved and displayed
• Accounts open with two or three distributors
• First stock received, with batch and expiry recorded
• Fridge, thermometer and expired-stock shelf in place
• Billing, credit book and expiry routine ready

Opening a medical store takes paperwork and patience, but the steps are clear. Get the licence right, start with a careful first order, and run the store with good records from day one.