"We are the less visible side of the pharmaceutical industry," acknowledges Miguel Silvestre, chairman of the Board of Directors of plural+udifar, the pharmaceutical distribution company responsible for "procuring, storing and distributing" pharmaceutical products, so that "the right medicine reaches pharmacies at the right time". Just over a year away from its 50th anniversary, which it will celebrate in November 2024, plural+udifar is a pharmaceutical cooperative owned by around 1,500 pharmacies. But despite its origins in Coimbra, its reach extends "from the north to the south of the country, from the coast to the interior", emphasizes Miguel Silvestre.
"We are based in Coimbra, where we were born and where one of our main platforms is, but we also have facilities in Lisbon, Porto, Covilhã and the Algarve, as well as a partnership in the Autonomous Region of Madeira with a local company," says the organisation's leader.
In charge of a "huge logistics operation", plural+udifar currently employs 320 people and has 80 of its own vehicles, to which another 20 are outsourced, so that it can, "by capillarity, get its medicines to most Portuguese pharmacies twice a day", explains the head of the company that today occupies one of the top positions in the sector.
"We're the third largest operator in the market at a national level," only surpassed by two multinationals operating in Portugal, and "the first company with 100% Portuguese capital," notes Miguel Silvestre, who is proud of the "growth path" that plural+udifar has embarked on over the last few decades. "We've added various structures from the north to the south of the country and evolved from a TV show of regional cooperatives to a single cooperative with national reach, which, despite having the legal model of a cooperative, is a company with the same professionalism and the same level of demand as any other company."
In addition to people, who the chairman of the board believes are "the greatest asset of any organisation and the most important part of our company", there are two other "fundamental pillars" in plural+udifar's activity: "technology and innovation, on the one hand, and ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance), on the other". "Even from an international point of view, we are a company that is seen as an example of good practice in terms of sustainability, not only economically but also environmentally and socially," says Miguel Silvestre, who highlights the 100% electric vehicles that already cover a large part of the company's distribution chain and the support provided to a number of third sector associations.
As far as innovation is concerned, the head of plural+udifar guarantees that the company is "constantly looking for what technology can do for us, so that we can be increasingly efficient and competent in what we do". Examples of this are the commitment to "automation systems and continuous improvement processes", the "data driven" culture, which aims to build a "solid base of information to support decision-making" and the substantial investment the organisation has made in IT security.
In terms of technology and innovation, plural+udifar also makes a point of surrounding itself with "always very competent technological partners, such as Altice, with whom we have had a long-lasting partnership, with excellent results, for several years," concludes Miguel Silvestre.