A growing San Francisco-based telemedicine startup is opening a unique pharmacy facility in Dublin.
Nurx focuses on providing convenient, affordable health care needs through its digital platform, particularly health care centered around birth control, STI testing and other sensitive health needs. Most recently, the platform has added dermatology to that growing list.
The company will open a pharmacy in Dublin this year, which is expected to create 43 jobs over the next seven years. This will be the second non-retail pharmacy for Nurx, in addition to a pharmacy in Syracuse, New York.
Founded in 2016, the company gives patients the opportunity to receive medical consultations and get prescribed medication entirely online. With their two closed-door (as opposed to the traditional, brick-and-mortar) pharmacies, Nurx will have the opportunity to fill a lot more scripts and get their patients the medication they need faster and more efficiently.
“The whole idea that is we’re basically trying to boost access and increase convenience for patients,” said Isabel Ma, a business operations and strategy associate at Nurx. “All in all, you go onto our platform, you’re able to fill out a survey, you’re able to get a prescription and then you’re able to get it delivered right to your door.”
Ma is a part of Nurx’s business operations and strategy team, which optimizes the company’s workflows and product platform processes across the board. So opening up a second pharmacy falls under their umbrella.
When considering a second location, the company wanted to make sure the location they chose made sense and was logistically sound. Nurx was also looking for a city with a great workforce pool, and proximity to business and shipping hubs.
Dublin was also chosen because of the often-cited statistic cities and businesses point to for why they should relocate to Central Ohio—50% of the U.S. population lives within a 500-mile radius of the region, with 60% of the population living within a 600-mile radius of the state. (Ma said this bit of information was also shared by Nurx’s Senior Vice President of Operations, Shaun Young, who coincidentally lives in Dublin.)
“Obviously, given the nature of our business, it’s really important for us to be located in a central location so that we’re able to service our patient base across the United States,” said Ma. “And when we’re doing our preliminary research, it definitely checked out, just in terms of shipping speeds and convenience.”
Ma said working with the City of Dublin, in particular, has been beneficial, as the city assisted the company with locating different sites, giving insight into each location’s benefits, as well as letting the company know about the different business incentives and programs they could participate in.
“The City of Dublin has just been awesome to work with,” she said. “I mean, they’ve been with us since the beginning.”
The company eventually decided on a 6,500 square foot facility over on Tuller Road. Ma also suggested being in Dublin leaves open the opportunity for expansion.
Nurx will eventually be hiring an entire staff of pharmacists, pharmacist techs, clerks, material handlers, and others to process prescriptions at its new facility. But the next few months are focused on getting the new space move-in ready.
“We’ll be kicking off hiring for the space itself as early as this quarter, as soon as everything gets built out,” said Ma. “But then we’ll have positions available across all the different functions…near the middle of this year going into next year.”
For more information on Nurx, visit nurx.com.
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