The way is clear for a new, large online pharmacy in Switzerland. The Bernese care group Galenica and Shop Apotheke Europe can enter into a strategic partnership, the competition authorities have given the green light. This creates competition with the Migros online pharmacy.
The competition authorities in Switzerland and Austria have approved the planned joint venture between Galenica AG and Shop Apotheke Europe, Galenica AG announced Thursday evening.
The decision of the Competition Commission (Weko) was received on Thursday, according to a media spokesman when asked by Keystone-SDA. This paves the way for “establishing Switzerland’s leading online pharmacy”. The transaction establishing the joint venture will close on May 16, 2023.
At the end of March 2023, Galenica and Shop Apotheke Europe announced that they would merge the business activities of the specialist pharmacy Mediservice AG and the online pharmacy shop-apotheke.ch into a joint venture.
Mediservice and shop-apotheke.ch would complement each other perfectly, they said. Mediservice is Switzerland’s leading specialty pharmacy with a focus on shipping prescription drugs. Shop Apotheke Europe is Europe’s leading online pharmacy, operating shop-apotheke.ch, a fast-growing digital health platform in Switzerland.
In the joint venture, Mediservice AG will take over the business activities of shop-apotheke.ch and form the joint venture.
Galenica sells 51 percent of Mediservice AG’s shares in Shop Apotheke Europe and also makes a cash payment of EUR 29 million. In return, Galenica will receive an 8 percent stake in Shop Apotheke Europe as part of a capital increase.
The transaction comes at an exciting time: early this year, retail pharmacy rival Zur Rose announced it would sell its Swiss business to “orange giant” Migros as it wanted to focus on its German operations. The announced new joint venture therefore competes directly with these expanded Migros activities.
Since Thursday, shares of mail-order pharmacy Zur Rose Group have been trading on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the new name DocMorris and the new ticker symbol DOCM (formerly ROSE). At the General Meeting of Shareholders on May 4, the shareholders approved the name change from Zur Rose to DocMorris AG. The Swiss company, now owned by Migros, will continue to be operated under the Zur Rose brand.
(yam/sda/awp)
source: watson
I’m Maxine Reitz, a journalist and news writer at 24 Instant News. I specialize in health-related topics and have written hundreds of articles on the subject. My work has been featured in leading publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and Healthline. As an experienced professional in the industry, I have consistently demonstrated an ability to develop compelling stories that engage readers.
