Jan Žák, Dr. Max CEO: pharmacies are more than pill boxes

Jan Žák has spent the past three years running Dr. Max, the largest pharmacy chain in Czechia, as well as its sister distribution company Via-Pharma. At the Forbes Business Fest he explained how the chain, with annual revenue of 32 billion crowns, plans to turn pharmacies from places that simply hand out medicine into full-fledged health centers.

Dr. Max, owned by the investment group Penta, is expanding briskly beyond Czechia and Slovakia. “We're now operating in six countries,” Žák said. Romania and Serbia have joined the chain's traditional Polish market, and more recently the chain has also been moving into Italy. According to the company's head, it is precisely Penta's shareholders who keep motivating the team to keep growing and developing the business.

To fuel its growth, Dr. Max is leaning heavily on technology — the company is testing automation and robots in its warehouses, including solutions from the Czech startup Brightpick, which today also operates successfully in the United States. “I love technology and I love trying new things,” admitted Žák, who joined Dr. Max eight years ago as CEO of its Slovak division and became general director of the Czech chain three years ago.

Žák sees the main strategic task as transforming the very role of pharmacies. “I'd like us to move away from the historical role of pharmacies as places with boxes of medicine and become a place people come to for advice and consultation about their health,” he explained, citing the practice of vaccinations in US pharmacies as an example.

Today the chain already offers preventive medicine services, various tests and sample collection, and this segment, according to Žák, will only keep growing. “A pharmacy is, in essence, the most accessible healthcare you can usually reach within fifteen minutes. And it should be a place where you can get advice about your health,” the Dr. Max chief emphasized.

At the same time, the company is experimenting with new business formats. Nearly two years ago Dr. Max launched a beauty concept and the Beauty by Dr. Max store. Now the plan is the Dr. Max Super format, brought over from Romania: significantly larger outlets with an expanded range of services for customers, which the company also wants to try out in Slovakia and Czechia.