Interview with Vireak Chea, Founder & CEO of PillTech
This week, we spoke with Vireak Chea, CEO and Founder of PillTech, a digital pharmaceutical platform that allows pharmacists across the countries to stock their shelves with genuine, registered products. Vireak started his entreprenurial joruney by opening the retail pharmacy Community Pharma, a modern pharmacy with international standards that sought to prioritise patients with tailored prescriptions offered by professional pharmacists at a reasonable price. With PillTech, Vireak is constantly pushing the envelope to standardise and modernise the pharmaceutical industry in Cambodia.
EuroCham: Could you briefly describe how you got into entrepreneurship in Cambodia?
Vireak: The reason why I moved back to Cambodia from the US is for family. I had been away from Cambodia for 20 years, my parents were aging and they had a lot of health issues. My father had a major stroke 13 years ago and that really hit home. I studied pharmaceuticals in the US and since I was in the healthcare industry, I thought I should come back, spend more time with my family, and see what opportunities I could find in the healthcare sector.
It’s now been 10 years since I’ve been back. Starting something up in a different country – I was born here but raised in the US -- it’s a big learning curve. What you see in the US versus Cambodia is totally different. A lot of things have to be totally localized here.
Having experience in US really helped when I started my retail pharmacy. At the same time, it showed how fragmented our country is concerning distribution of medications. It made me want to challenge the status quo and eventually led to me starting PillTech.
As a pharmacist in Cambodia, you talk to your supplier maybe once a week, and each supplier has different products. In the US, one supplier sells you 10,000 products, it’s all online and you don’t have to talk to anyone. After talking to people in the industry, I realized this was a pain point for many pharmacists in Cambodia. PillTech tries to solve this problem by providing an online pharma marketplace offering a wide range of products and offering with door-to-door delivery.
A big part of this is also getting rid of substandard and counterfeit medicines.
EuroCham: Why is Cambodia particularly at risk for counterfeit meds?
Vireak: The border is very porous in our country. Just like other neighboring countries, there’s a lot of things flowing in and out, easily. When that happens, you have substandard medicines and counterfeit products going through.
We need to make it harder for parallel importer to smuggle products through our borders. This means our border custom control needs to work closely together to make it tough for importers to bring in the goods.
When someone is trying to take advantage of the system, for example with oncology and cancer drugs, this where the criminals are trying to make money. There’s lots of ethics involved, they don’t fake paracetamol, they fake the higher-priced drugs.
EuroCham: Through your various duties as PillTech CEO and Co-Chairman of the Health Committee, how are you working to fix this issue?
Vireak: PillTech tries to solve the issue of taking care of millions of patients in the right way. We are an online platform that can be trusted, where pharmacies are guaranteed to be getting quality medicines that are registered and authentic.
The problem with counterfeit products is that they look exactly like the real thing, you can’t tell with the naked eye.
Regarding the Healthcare Committee, we work with the MoH and offer support to them any way we can. We have so many diverse members, from distribution to manufacturing, that we can help provide support to the MoH if needed. We’d love to offer our consultancy services for drafting pharmaceutical laws, we (EuroCham) have law firms and specialists, EuroCham is striving to be involved in this process. It’s a great thing, that’s why I wanted to be a part of the committee.
EuroCham: You will be moderating a panel on healthcare and illicit trade. What are some key messages you’d like to get across to the public? What about stakeholders in the healthcare industry?
Vireak: If you’re a pharmacy retailer, buy from reputable sources and ask a lot of questions. Where is your product from and how were you able to get it for so cheap for example?
As a pharmacist, you are sort of the gatekeeper for the patients.
For stakeholders in the industry, it’s same thing, ask for business licenses and product registrations, this helps ensure products are genuine.
When you’re in the healthcare industry, we pledge to do no harm, that’s our goal. Monetary gains are a bonus, a result of doing good. However, it shouldn’t be your first priority. If you’re in healthcare for making money, I’d say you should get into real estate or something more profitable. If you go into healthcare, you know that you’re here to help people. We understand that we need to uphold a high ethical standard.
Everyone in the supply chain needs to hold each other accountable.
EuroCham: Is there an ideal solution to this problem? What are the next actionable steps to solving the issue?
Vireak: Education and increased awareness. Retailers and pharmacies, we need to educate them on what to look for.
Fake products can be defined in two ways: either the actual product is fake or it may be considered a parallel import. It might be a legal product, but it enters the country illegally, without paying proper taxes or registered with the MOH.
For example, we might find parallel imported insulin from Turkey for half the price of a registered insulin product. It’s hard for the patient to deter the use of this type of product if it’s half the price, but it comes down to the patients and pharmacists making ethical decisions.
I’d advise people to come and join the forum to see what we’re doing to combat this illegal drug trade. In general, I’d say border controls need to be stricter and people need to ask more questions about the origins of products. This would go a long way in helping fix the problem. People are opportunists and for drugs, everyone needs them, so there is room for unethical practices there.
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