LeapFrog Investments has acquired a majority stake in for $22 million thereby giving East Africa-focused private equity firm Catalyst Principal Partners a full exit from the firm which it first backed in 2014.
Goodlife plans to use LeapFrog’s investment to expand its network from nineteen locations to more than one hundred stores in the next five years.
Goodlife Pharmacy is the first pharmaceutical chain in the East African region to have introduced consultation centres in all its locations and implement industry practices to alleviate the dispensing of substandard and counterfeit medications.
Catalyst had earlier launched a re-branded pharmaceutical chain Goodlife Pharmacy after the acquisition of a controlling stake in Mimosa Pharmacy.
According to Felix Olale, LeapFrog’s Co-Head of Healthcare Investments and the Partner who led the deal for the investment company, “The future of healthcare in emerging markets is about looking at a model that will endure for the 21st century. At the centre of this is a focus on consumer-centric and integrated healthcare. Goodlife’s business model delivers on this imperative. It is a pharmacy, a wellness outlet, a diagnostics centre, and in the future, it will also be a place where you can access clinicians through telemedicine…”
In early 2015 the IFC approved a $4.5 million loan to Goodlife to help support its ambitious expansion plans.
