Duniya Healthcare is redefining pharmaceutical distribution in Zambia, leveraging digital tools and data intelligence to deliver essential medicines to some of the country’s most remote communities. The startup, founded in 2023 by Mwansa Chalo, is on a mission to fix a problem that has plagued African healthcare systems for decades: logistics failures that cost lives.
The company’s platform connects pharmacies and rural health centres with licensed pharmaceutical wholesalers, digitising procurement and decentralising last-mile delivery. With 13 wholesalers onboard and over 600 facilities currently served, Duniya is already shifting the landscape of medicine access in a market projected to reach $189.8 million in 2025.
A Tragedy that Became a Catalyst
Chalo’s motivation stems from both personal and systemic failure. A story from a Catholic-run clinic in Monze District—where a 17-year-old girl died from malaria due to medicine stockouts—highlighted the urgency of supply chain reform. “This is life and death. Nobody should die because medicine can’t reach them,” Chalo said.
Raised in a family of healthcare entrepreneurs, Chalo grew up observing the fragility of medicine procurement and distribution. He left the family business to explore other ventures but returned to healthcare after a conversation with a pharmacist reignited his awareness of long-standing supply chain inefficiencies.
From Concept to Platform
Duniya’s proof-of-concept began with manual deliveries and one pharmacy order. Today, it runs a bifurcated system:
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Urban pharmacies access a digital marketplace to compare prices and place orders from verified wholesalers.
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Rural health centres follow an aggregation model where orders are consolidated weekly, competitively bid on by wholesalers, and then broken down at Duniya’s Lusaka warehouse for regional delivery.
Crucially, Duniya works through a commission-based revenue model that charges suppliers—not health centres—keeping costs accessible. Licensed pharmacy agents in underrepresented areas serve as distribution points and share in the commission, creating a decentralized delivery mesh.
Data-Led, Impact-Driven
Beyond logistics, Duniya is also building a healthcare intelligence engine. The platform tracks everything from demand trends and pricing to batch data and mortality linked to 10 fatal diseases. It uses these insights to pre-empt outbreaks and improve policy response. Plans are underway to introduce AI and blockchain to improve traceability and combat counterfeit drugs, which kill an estimated 500,000 people annually in Africa.
“Traceability isn’t optional—it’s survival,” Chalo emphasized.
Institutional Validation and Scale
In 2024, Duniya secured a $10 million, five-year contract with the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Africa Health and Economic Transformation Institute to digitise procurement for 75 mission hospitals. In just six months, the programme has reduced medicine costs by nearly 30% and significantly curbed stockouts.
This includes facilities like Santa Maria Mission Hospital, accessible only by road and boat. “Frequent stockouts are now a thing of the past,” said hospital administrator Reverend Sister Veronica Mwale.
To date, Duniya’s operations have reached over 750,000 patients, with early estimates suggesting more than 300 lives saved.
Market Outlook and Expansion Plans
Duniya moved $1 million in medicines in 2024 and expects to triple that in 2025. With eyes on the broader East African pharmaceutical market—valued at $2.36 billion by 2025—the startup is preparing to enter Kenya and Uganda by Q1 2026.
The long-term vision: become Africa’s largest last-mile medicine distributor, with the capacity to serve 10,000 facilities and save an estimated 50,000 lives annually.
Backed by Global Partners
Initial funding came from personal savings and a small friends-and-family round. With high local interest rates posing barriers, Duniya turned to international investors. Digital Africa and Tamboti Circle have since joined as pre-seed backers in an ongoing $1 million raise to support app development, logistics scaling, and regional expansion.
Duniya has already gained global recognition—named a finalist in the Harvard HealthLab Accelerator and winning the World Summit Award as the only African healthcare startup on the global stage.
A Moral and Market Imperative
For Chalo, the work goes beyond metrics. “This isn’t just about solving logistics; it’s about rewriting the story of access to healthcare in Africa,” he said. By digitising and decentralising drug distribution, Duniya is making a compelling case for how technology can bridge life-threatening access gaps in African health systems—and do so at scale.
