A true believer in the power of a strong team, Deepanshu Madan knew exactly what he needed to do when he assumed the CEO role at Vietnam’s retail giant Pharmacity in November 2023.
His appointment came on the back of 17 years of private equity experience, during which time he had developed a profound understanding of what it takes to build a successful company and had already led several long-term investments in healthcare across pharmaceutical manufacturing, hospitals and pharmacies.
“One of the first changes I made was to bring on board a team of specialists who were very strong across their functions,” Madan tells The CEO Magazine.
“Suddenly, that transitioned us from a company that was internally looking at how we tackle challenges to a company that was looking to raise the bar and target benchmarks that were best in class in the country.”
“Our aspiration is always to be the market leader.”
A culture shift came hand in hand with this leveling up, with Madan setting out clear objectives with his team to help the company attain key milestones.
“Instead of looking at this as a business where you work hard for 12 months and then get a bonus, I actually made them all part of the ownership of this company,” he explains.
Now, the company’s employee stock ownership program extends to 18 percent of the corporate office, with all functional leaders and those in the level below them working toward ownership.
“That changes the game a lot because every day that they come into office, they’re creating value for themselves,” Madan stresses.
Offering more
Pharmacity is committed to being a company that goes well beyond simply dispensing drugs, so Madan set about aligning the business with the market by focusing firmly on the needs of the customer.
“It’s actually one of the most complicated operations from a stock-keeping unit point of view and also from a compliance point of view,” he says. “So we redid the entire assortment of the company, and our single-minded objective was customer service.”
Ensuring Pharmacity was equipped to fulfill any prescription its customers brought in was a major part of this strategy, which saw Madan and his team take a deep dive into the data they had at their fingertips in order to reorganize the company’s supplies.
“If you look at it today, after two years of being here, our revenue has increased 75 percent from December 2023 to December 2025, and we have significantly expanded our products in terms of what the customer wants,” he reveals.
“We are now able to fulfill varied prescriptions. And not only that, but we are also able to fulfill significantly different volumes than we were before.”
Fourteen years after inception – and just two years after Madan joined – Pharmacity became profitable in the fourth quarter of 2025 and is expected to remain profitable for the full year 2026.
Madan’s extensive experience working across different facets of the healthcare industry – from hospitals to pharmaceutical companies – gave him a thorough understanding of the medical world. This expertise formed the foundations of his approach.
“All of that is culminating into an atmosphere where people are motivated because they see a very clear direction on what we want to accomplish as a team,” he reflects.
The next phase
Now, the company is perfectly positioned for growth, according to Madan. This year alone, he expects to add around 200 stores to the Pharmacity ranks. Since he joined, it has already expanded to 200 stores, and as of January 2026, there were more than 1,100 stores across Vietnam.
“Our aspiration is always to be the market leader, not just in store count but also in quality and service,” he enthuses. “We want to add close to 500–600 stores in three years.”
But he understands that such an ambitious expansion requires proper preparation.
“One of the key lessons of retail is that you can expand very fast, but you don’t want to lose control of the fundamentals of the business, which is inventory,” he insists.
“Even though there is high intensity in pricing competition, we want to make sure that the customer experience and health do not take a backseat.”
“If a retail business loses control of that, then they’re not able to grow. That’s why our first objective is to ensure that we control inventory so strongly that each store we open is adequately capitalized instead of overcapitalized.”
With this tight control on capital allocation in place, Pharmacity will be ready to overcome any obstacles that lie ahead. In fact, Madan sees industry challenges as an opportunity for the company to shine.
“To ensure we live up to the gold standard of quality, our supply chain has evolved tremendously. From cold chain operations to barcoding every box and tracing back stock from entry to exit, we have invested strongly,” he says.
Standing out
This is where partnerships come in, with Pharmacity committed to working with the right vendors to ensure all medicines within its system are fully traceable with the correct batch and lot numbers.
“That is why we believe we stand out because our key message to our consumers will always be that you can trust our medicines because we maintain extremely tight control on it,” Madan says.
“It’s a challenge because it takes a long time, but it’s also an opportunity for us to brand ourselves differently.”
“As a participant in the industry, we want to make consumers’ lives easier.”
Pricing is another area of contention amid an extremely competitive market, but Madan is quick to point out that low prices and top quality don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
“Even though there is high intensity in pricing competition, we want to make sure that the customer experience and health do not take a backseat,” he says.
“The way we overcome this is by hiring a team whose only job is to make sure that we are actually in the ecosystem every day in the market learning about core medicines that people want, and we are able to gather that insight into pricing so we are able to modify and keep ourselves in line.”
Again, the strength of Pharmacity’s partnerships comes into play here, with the company working closely with its suppliers to ensure it delivers the best quality at a compelling price. Technology has also played a pivotal role by aggregating a range of services into a centralized healthcare platform that is both user-friendly and cutting-edge.
“As a participant in the industry, we want to make consumers’ lives easier,” Madan says. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”
Pharmacity has now expanded to patient services and is offering free blood pressure testing and glucose testing services across all of its stores by bringing its vendor partners on board.
“Our journey has just begun, and I believe we have a lot more to do to deliver world-class service quality to the Vietnamese consumer,” he concludes.
