Essential Medical (EM) Guidance is an intelligent medicines search engine, providing access to the largest up-to-date database of country-specific medicines, information, and digital support tools in South Africa. Understanding how medicines are packaged, how it’s costed, and how it’s used to treat a population is complex challenges that are easily addressed through EM Guidance. There are a number of competing mobile apps and digital platforms globally, but none that speak to the specific local context need that EM Guidance addresses. The system is aimed at both healthcare professionals searching for medicines’ information on a daily basis and multinational pharmaceuticals who spend a significant amount of their sales, marketing and educational efforts on engaging with these healthcare professionals. The system currently reaches over 35 000 healthcare professionals in South Africa. With over 1 million searches per month, the company has managed to onboard most of the larger multinational pharmaceutical companies that operate in South Africa, with the support of the National Department of Health. Following their last interaction with the MultiChoice Innovation Fund, the company signed a significant multi-country contract to roll out EM Guidance systems across all Sub-Saharan countries – a contract worth well over US$1 million/ZAR15,983 million.
