Behind the 10,000-Pharmacy Network: How Kim Byung-joo Built Korea’s Med-Tech Giant
- 4 hours ago
- 19 min read
Three years ago, when we briefly exchanged business cards at a startup event, I candidly forgot about the encounter for some time. Recently, however, while observing the retail and commerce markets, I realized that the "pharmacy" channel was entering an entirely new phase. As I walked down the street, I began noticing an increasing number of signboards reading "Charmpharm" everywhere I looked, naturally prompting a cascade of questions.
"What exactly is unfolding in today’s pharmacy ecosystem?"
Reaching back into my memory, I tracked down that three-year-old business card and reached out. About three weeks ago, I visited the Charmpharm office.
Throughout our extensive conversation, what struck me most was his "relentless trajectory adjustments." From a pharmaceutical researcher to an active community pharmacist, and ultimately to an entrepreneur transforming the pharmacy ecosystem, his evolution revealed a persistent flexibility that refused to settle for the familiar.
His execution was vividly reflected in the numbers. The chain had expanded beyond 700 locations nationwide, while "Banpharm"—the proprietary inventory management solution developed in-house—was being utilized daily by roughly 10,000 pharmacies, representing nearly 40% of the entire national market.
Yet, what left a far deeper impression than this vast infrastructure was the point of origin for all his answers. The CEO of a medical-tech enterprise driving data across 10,000 pharmacies was not focusing primarily on technology itself.
Instead, it was a profoundly human concern: alleviating the inherent isolation of frontline pharmacists and aligning services with a perspective that makes patients feel at ease. This is the story of CEO Kim Byung-joo, who is redefining the pharmacy from a mere point of prescription pickup into a space where personal health journeys begin.
Q. It is quite intriguing that the initial venture formed by pharmacists was neither a pharmacy nor a distribution firm, but a publishing house. From a personal perspective, what drove that choice at the time?
When I stepped into the field after graduating from a four-year pharmacy program, I felt deeply adrift because standard guidelines were virtually non-existent. Witnessing how a pharmacist's practical competence varied wildly depending on which senior mentor they happened to shadow, I realized how desperately our field needed structured training and actionable references.
Around that time, word reached us that a small publishing house specializing in pharmacy literature was on the brink of closure. A respected mentor then subtly suggested, "If these records disappear, it will be a immense loss for the entire pharmaceutical community. Why don't a few driven young pharmacists step up and carry on the torch?" Had profit been our primary driver, we would have chosen wholesale distribution or group purchasing. However, what my colleagues and I craved most at that moment was connecting field knowledge. That is why, unconventional as it may have seemed, we took our first steps as a cooperative dedicated to academic knowledge and publishing.
A decisive turning point that reassured us of this choice was the release of the late Pharmacist Park Jeong-wan's Stories of Medicines Used Behind the Pharmacy Counter.
Translating over four decades of frontline clinical expertise into accessible language, this book evolved into a five-volume series spanning 15 years, becoming a definitive practical handbook for pharmacists nationwide. Yet, what thrilled me far more than its bestseller status was witnessing firsthand how a single practitioner's lifetime of individual experience—once structured and organized—could become an invaluable collective asset for an entire profession.
Looking back, the essence of what we are accomplishing at Charmpharm through data and AI today remains identical. Where we once captured senior pharmacists' wisdom within the pages of a book, we are now aggregating nationwide clinical data and field intelligence through digital and AI infrastructure to return that value directly to frontline pharmacists.
Q. What brought about your transition from a corporate R&D role at a pharmaceutical company back to a community pharmacy?
Originally, after completing my master's degree, I was working in R&D at a pharmaceutical firm. However, as I co-founded and managed the cooperative—eventually serving as its co-chairman—the overlap between my corporate duties and the cooperative's operations became increasingly difficult to manage. I realized that balancing both was unsustainable and began contemplating whether it was time to step into the frontline pharmacy setting. Right around then, a respected senior pharmacist reached out and suggested, "A promising location opened up; would you like to take a look?" That led me to establish my first pharmacy in Jongam-dong, Seongbuk-gu.
The location, however, was tucked behind a building rather than facing the main street. It was so hidden that visitors would frequently call asking, "Where exactly is the pharmacy?" My biggest frustration with this setup was its heavy reliance on prescription fulfillment. At the time, while dispensing prescriptions and explaining medication instructions were undoubtedly vital, many of us felt that this model left pharmacies overly dependent on hospital referrals.
In contrast, conducting direct consultations on health status and nutritional supplements with walk-in patients allowed pharmacists to exercise their professional expertise far more dynamically—an aspect of the work we found immensely fulfilling. In that sense, the environment of my first pharmacy was less than ideal for actively delivering those in-depth, proactive consultations.
Q. I heard that you began building your own system as soon as you opened the pharmacy. What specific problem were you aiming to solve back then?
With a strong interest in IT and a background in corporate R&D, I had a compelling drive to manage patient care systematically through data. That is why, upon opening the pharmacy, I approached our billing software and POS vendors with a proposal: while prescription data was already being stored, I asked them to adapt the platform so we could log OTC medication and nutritional supplement purchases in the same record. That initiative eventually laid the groundwork for the "Charmpharm POS" platform we use with our member pharmacists today.
Once we began accumulating this data, the impact was immediate. Chronic disease patients often find repetitive medication instructions monotonous. Having prior records, however, allowed us to engage them proactively, asking, "How did that supplement you picked up last time work out for you?" From the patient’s perspective, it became a deeply touching touchpoint—feeling that "this pharmacy truly remembers me."
The most decisive moment involved a drug allergy incident. A regular patient visited an urgent care clinic over the weekend and forgot to inform the doctor about their existing drug allergies, resulting in a prescription for a penicillin-based antibiotic. Reviewing our system records, I asked, "You have a history of antibiotic allergies; did you happen to mention that during your consultation today?" Realizing they had forgotten, I immediately contacted the hospital to have the prescription modified. From that day on, regardless of which hospital they visited, they brought their prescriptions exclusively to our pharmacy.
A similar detail was applied to pediatric medication packaging. Raising my first child at the time, I understood the daily realities of parenting firsthand. In households with multiple children, mixed-up powdered medicine pouches pose a serious risk due to differing dosage requirements. To prevent confusion, we configured the system to assign distinct, dedicated pouch colors for each child in the family. While it may seem like a small detail, this level of attentiveness—backed by systematic management—built profound trust with parents.
Q. For that period, 25 pyeong was by no means a small pharmacy, so I am curious what drove your decision to expand further.
With these differentiators, our revenue grew significantly within a short period, which sparked my desire to take on a new challenge. While a 25-pyeong space was certainly not small by the standards of that era, I had always felt a lingering regret: "Why don't we have drugstores like the ones overseas?" Seeing the drugstore industry thrive in other countries—such as Walgreens and CVS in the US, or Matsumoto Kiyoshi and Welcia in Japan—I kept asking myself why a similar model couldn't flourish in Korea.
So, I took a month-long leave and flew to the United States. I personally visited over 300 drugstore locations across various major brands to conduct field research. Armed with the insights gathered from that journey, I leased an adjacent 20-pyeong space to expand into a 45-pyeong "Korean-style drugstore." From product assortment to service delivery, we experimented with a wide array of initiatives.
Fortunately, those efforts led to us winning the Grand Prize at the Pharmacy Management Awards. After being featured in professional pharmaceutical publications, word of mouth spread, bringing a steady stream of visitors. Younger pharmacists reached out to tour the facility or seek advice, while more seasoned pharmacists asked, "I'll fund it—could you help transform my pharmacy into this style as well?"
Q. I am curious about the decisive moment that made you realize the limitations of an individual pharmacy and led you to scale into a corporate-style chain (Charmpharm). You must have wrestled with considerations far beyond merely sharing products or signboards.
The direct catalyst was surprisingly trivial. My wife mentioned, "There’s a new product out that’s supposed to be great." When I reached out to the vendor, they immediately asked for my minimum order quantity (MOQ). Knowing little about MOQs back then, I suggested, "I’ll try 10 or maybe 100 units." They responded that their minimum order unit was in the thousands or tens of thousands. In that moment, I intuitively realized that an individual pharmacy faces clear limitations when trying to pioneer new initiatives, and that solving these problems required building a scalable business model to achieve economies of scale.
Initially, I attempted to execute this with our existing cooperative members. However, due to the nature of a cooperative—where ownership and responsibility can be ambiguous—and as everyone became busier with their personal lives, driving the business forward with speed proved difficult. Consequently, we left the original cooperative intact and made a fresh start by establishing a corporate entity structured for decisive execution.
Opening a pharmacy involves navigating immense regulatory hurdles, requiring approvals across five different government entities. Furthermore, when individual owners source services like interior design or security independently, they often end up trapped in disadvantageous, one-off transactions. Aggregating these needs into a unified system creates powerful negotiating leverage.
Yet, the most invaluable realization gained through running this business went beyond wholesale discounts or franchise branding. One of our member pharmacists once told me that previously, they felt like a "lonely sole proprietor" bearing every single problem of the pharmacy alone. After joining Charmpharm, however, they felt for the first time that "there is someone thinking through these problems alongside me."
No matter how small a pharmacy may be, a pharmacist must independently navigate a mountain of decisions—from labor relations and accounting to marketing and patient consultations. What pharmacists truly find valuable isn't just product discounts, but the "reassuring infrastructure" itself—a network where they can share and resolve challenges together with headquarters and fellow pharmacists.
Q. COVID-19 struck just as you launched the chain. How did you navigate that crisis?
COVID-19 was simultaneously a crisis and an opportunity for us. Demand surged for everything from hand sanitizers and masks to diagnostic kits, creating shortages nationwide. As a leader guiding a chain, I felt a deep responsibility to supply these products to our member pharmacies at all costs to alleviate public distress. From that point on, I spent sleepless nights racing to source and procure inventory. At the time, the market was so overheated that it bordered on an underground economy.
There is a memorable episode from that period. When I went to meet a broker mediating inventory, they abruptly asked me, "You brought a knife with you, right?" Stunned, I asked what they meant. Half-jokingly, half-seriously, they explained that because massive cash transactions were taking place, the environment was dangerous, so people carried knives for protection.
I wondered if I had misheard, but my unease grew when I learned the transaction meeting spot was a lamb skewering restaurant in Sinrim-dong. Buying a knife felt excessive, so I purchased a self-defense baton to carry with me instead. It was an era when tens of hundreds of millions of won changed hands in a single deal.
Back then, when we sourced masks through the logistics center at Hanam Starfield—where one of our board member’s pharmacies was located—member pharmacists couldn't even wait for parcel delivery; they came to collect them in person. We would all gather at the Starfield distribution hub to load and distribute masks among ourselves. Ultimately, navigating that intense trial taught us distribution through firsthand experience and allowed us to build a resilient distribution network. Had it not been for that period of hardship, I doubt we could have established our distribution business so solidly in such a short timeframe.
Q. You often divide pharmacy chains into distinct generations. What criteria define each generation?
The first generation emerged in the early 1990s. These chains grew primarily around exclusive private label (PB) products that could only be sold within their specific networks, making wholesale distribution their core foundation. Second-generation chains, by contrast, shifted in character. A pharmacy is not a space where general staff handle sales; it is a professional setting where licensed pharmacists must personally dispense medication and deliver consultations. Recognizing this, second-generation leaders built their businesses around educating pharmacists and fostering communities to exchange rapidly evolving clinical knowledge and industry updates.
While integrating the wholesale distribution of the first generation and the academic and educational frameworks of the second, we carefully considered what would constitute our own defining differentiator.
The answer was digital transformation. Until recently, large segments of the pharmacy market remained entrenched in analog workflows. While the broader world was accelerating past digital transformation into the age of AI, frontline pharmacies struggled to keep pace. High barriers to entry, a unique industry culture, and the inherent caution of a professional medical community combined to leave the sector as one of the few remaining frontiers untouched by rapid innovation.
Observing how far other industries had progressed, I grew convinced that successfully adapting these technologies for the pharmaceutical sector would offer tremendous value to pharmacists while enabling us to build a viable new business model. That realization drove our decision to launch IT initiatives targeting the entire national market, far beyond the boundaries of our own franchise chain.
Q. I am curious how the IT services felt directly on the pharmacy floor first originated. I understand the initiative began by tackling inventory and product return challenges.
The primary catalyst was the implementation of the "Pharmaceutical Serial Number System." Introducing two-dimensional barcodes meant each individual box of prescription medication received a unique tracking number, much like a smartphone IMEI. Ironically, this created immense confusion during product returns. If a pharmacy attempted to return an item to Wholesaler A, it would frequently be rejected with the notice: "This specific unit was purchased through Wholesaler B." To identify the correct vendor, pharmacists had to log into each wholesale portal individually and query numbers one by one.
Observing this bottleneck, I realized: "If we utilize pharmacy-specific digital certificates, we can automate this entire cross-referencing process." We developed a platform that instantly identifies the original wholesaler upon scanning a barcode, which evolved into our current "Banpharm" service under The Yak Solution. Today, it has become an essential tool utilized daily by over 10,000 pharmacies—representing more than 40% of all locations nationwide.
Yet, its true significance extended far beyond merely streamlining returns.
Inventory that previously ended up discarded or abandoned in storage because vendor records were lost began transforming into "visualized data" through Banpharm. On the frontline, pharmacists who initially installed the program to simplify returns increasingly began leveraging it as an active inventory management platform, realizing: "Now I can track exactly which medications are in stock, in what quantities, and where supply bottlenecks exist."
Data that once remained trapped inside a pharmacist's memory or buried in stockrooms was brought directly to light. This is the fundamental reason we continue advancing Banpharm beyond a simple return utility into a platform that—true to its name—helps pharmacists fall in love with their work while cutting their administrative workload in half.
Q. From the outside, a pharmacy appears to be just another retail store. From an insider's perspective, is it fundamentally different?
If I were to pick the retail format most structurally similar to a pharmacy, it would be a convenience store, given the reliance on displaying a vast array of SKUs in a relatively compact space with high inventory turnover. What proves fascinating, however, is the ratio between store count and total market volume. While nationwide convenience stores exceed 50,000 locations and pharmacies hover around 25,000, both sectors generate comparable total market volumes of approximately 30 trillion KRW. In other words, a single pharmacy generates more than double the average revenue of a convenience store, representing a commercial space with far greater distribution throughput.
The criteria for evaluating site locations are also entirely distinct from standard retail. While conventional retail focuses primarily on foot traffic and immediate residential catchment areas, a pharmacy's trajectory is decisively governed by the clinical specialties of neighboring medical clinics. Depending on whether a location caters primarily to pediatric or ENT clinics—frequented by children and parents—or internal medicine and orthopedics—visited predominantly by elderly patients—two pharmacies of identical square footage within the same commercial block must be designed as completely different operations.
This is why we deploy a strategy that combines standardization with deep customization. While foundational operating systems are strictly standardized to maximize operational efficiency, every detail that directly impacts customer satisfaction is tailored meticulously. Rather than handing down a rigid manual and demanding identical replication, we establish a core operational framework and engage in extensive consultations with each pharmacist to craft an optimized model suited to their specific environment.
Q. Large-scale "K-beauty pharmacies" are increasingly opening in major commercial hubs like Myeongdong and Hongdae. Opinions within the industry seem divided; how do you view this phenomenon?
Because my business serves pharmacists, I naturally prioritize their perspective. Looking at it objectively from an industry-wide viewpoint, however, I regard this as a positive evolution that elevates the Korean pharmacy sector to the next level.
My benchmark for evaluating any business is straightforward: there are ventures that grow by imposing costs on others, and there are those that expand the market through mutual synergy. The former inevitably faces heavy resistance and lacks longevity, whereas the latter holds far greater long-term sustainability. In that regard, K-beauty pharmacies do not structurally harm neighboring pharmacies or practitioners. Visiting these locations, one observes dedicated bilingual staff alongside detailed multilingual product labeling. Furthermore, the pharmacists at these locations study functional cosmetics and skincare ingredients extensively to deliver highly professional consultations. I view this as a compelling example of expanding a pharmacy's professional domain and capabilities.
In contrast, warehouse-style discount pharmacies that stockpile pharmaceuticals and compete purely on price operate on an entirely different premise. While consumers may benefit from lower price points on select items, pharmaceutical products are fundamentally distinct from everyday consumer goods or food products. Medications are not items to be consumed in high volumes through promotional tactics; what matters most is appropriate usage under professional medical guidance. From that perspective, such models stray somewhat from professional pharmaceutical ethics and the core value of genuinely prioritizing public health.
Q. Everyone emphasizes the importance of aggregating data, but was there a specific moment when that data truly became a strategic weapon for you?
Last year, PDRN ingredients emerged as a massive trend across the pharmacy market. At the time, we were monitoring data streams across our platform and noticed a sudden, sharp spike in demand for pharmaceuticals containing that specific compound. Wondering what was driving the signal, we quickly received real-time confirmation of the frontline momentum from both our member pharmacists and staff.
Taking immediate action, we contacted the pharmaceutical manufacturer directly. The product was experiencing nationwide stockouts at the time, making procurement exceptionally difficult. Yet, because we caught the data signals early and moved swiftly, we secured a dedicated supply and distributed it reliably to our network members.
Looking back, good fortune certainly played a role. Starting as a pharmacy chain and expanding into IT allowed us to build a platform where accumulating data enables us to read market shifts a step ahead of the broader industry.
Q. Moving forward, how does the "Care Pharmacy" model that Charmpharm is focusing on differ from traditional pharmacies?
If everything Charmpharm has accomplished so far represents Version 1.0, Version 2.0 will center squarely on the keyword "care." As is widely recognized, Korea is undergoing one of the fastest population aging processes in the world, making it imperative to re-evaluate the precise role pharmacies should play for the senior demographic.
When the pharmacist on the first floor of our headquarters retired, we took over that space directly to test a new care framework. We introduced dedicated "Care Priority Seating" for elderly patients and those with mobility challenges, while refining specialized sound-amplification equipment and intuitive prescription packaging systems.
Through these trials, we uncovered an insight far more fascinating than expected: patients sense whether a pharmacy is a space where they can comfortably open up about their personal health stories based on subtle spatial details.
Initially, I assumed that consultation content and educational programs would be the most critical elements. Yet, once we re-engineered the physical environment, factors such as seat placement, line-of-sight alignment between pharmacist and patient, and physical distance from other visitors fundamentally transformed the depth and quality of the dialogue.
Q. I heard that pharmacies used to be unusually hesitant to invest in physical facilities. Why was that?
In the past, there was a prevalent belief that if a pharmacy looked overly sophisticated or modern, customers might stay away, assuming "medications must be overpriced here." Consequently, most pharmacies hesitated to invest in physical upgrades or layout infrastructure.
Today, however, the customer demographic has evolved completely. While the senior demographic of 10 to 20 years ago was accustomed to frugality, the baby boomers entering the senior generation today possess financial independence and are far more accustomed to receiving high-quality services. Just as hospitals have advanced dramatically around customer experience, pharmacies must transform in tandem.
Where individual practitioners previously designed store layouts relying on personal intuition, we construct strictly evidence-based pharmacy environments grounded in data and patient interviews.
By implementing structured VMD, optimized movement patterns, space management, and personalized consultation workflows, we have seen pharmacies improve revenue and efficiency by 20% to 30%—and in some cases, by two to three times or more. Because adoption timelines and integration scopes vary across locations, compiling precise statistical averages remains a challenge; however, hearing pharmacists say "thanks to Charmpharm, pharmacies across Korea are becoming visibly cleaner and far more inviting" gives us immense fulfillment and momentum.
Q. Moving forward, how do you see the pharmacist's role evolving?
Rather than merely stocking, displaying, and selling products, the industry must return to the core essence of the profession: delivering deeper, structured patient care. It is about building a genuine bond between each patient and the pharmacy.
Today's consumers consult home shopping networks, internet forums, and even AI platforms before purchasing a simple nutritional supplement. Yet, discerning accurate, reliable information for their personal health remains increasingly difficult. Licensed professionals, who have undergone years of rigorous education and clinical training, are uniquely positioned to offer clear guidance. Instead of pushing product sales, the focus must shift toward providing consultation that decisively solves patients' health concerns and product choices.
This is why I continuously advocate for a fundamental positioning shift. Where pharmacists previously functioned as "sellers," they must now fully transition into "counselors." In the United States, medication therapy management (MTM) services allow pharmacists to comprehensively review multi-prescriptions from different clinics to prevent adverse interactions, working in active collaboration with medical providers. Korea's healthcare model should evolve toward a similar framework.
Gratefully, the technical infrastructure is already materializing. With patient consent, digital healthcare data platforms allow us to view six to twelve months of hospital and pharmacy prescription histories at a glance. Elderly patients often struggle to memorize every medication they take; with a single consent authorization, we can review medications obtained elsewhere just yesterday, identifying contraindications or adverse risks right alongside them.
Q. How should we interpret the finding that pharmacists manually modified 97.31% of AI recommendations in personalized supplement data? What domains do you believe AI will ultimately be unable to replace?
While it is difficult to definitively predict the ultimate limits of AI, even at this stage, there are distinct domains on the clinical floor that transcend data alone.
The most prominent example is "context unrecorded in data." AI can recommend near-optimal products based on purchase histories and consultation metrics.
Yet, the moment a pharmacist and a patient make direct eye contact, entirely different insights emerge—candid realities like "this medication upsets my stomach," "the tablets are too large to swallow," or "my biggest concern is actually a different symptom altogether." A single statement of this nature completely reshapes the priorities structured by an algorithm.
Reading subtle facial expressions, tone of voice, and the unspoken nuances behind a patient's words—and posing the right questions—stems entirely from an experienced pharmacist's clinical wisdom. Furthermore, because pharmaceuticals directly impact personal safety and legal accountability, expert verification remains essential.
Thus, the AI model we are building is not designed to dictate absolute answers in place of practitioners. Instead, AI serves as an assistive tool that rapidly narrows down vast options, leaving final decisions and delicate adjustments to the pharmacist directly interacting with the patient.
A truly sophisticated AI should observe when a practitioner overrides its recommendation, asking "why did the pharmacist make this choice?" and learning from that intervention to refine future suggestions. The "Pharmacy Super-Agent" platform Charmpharm is currently building is oriented squarely toward this paradigm.
Q. Does competing against global tech giants like Amazon Pharmacy ever feel daunting? What do you consider Charmpharm's single most powerful weapon in that landscape?
Candidly, direct comparisons with massive US tech conglomerates are difficult due to the sheer disparity in corporate scale, and we acknowledge that we have much to improve.
Nevertheless, our definitive strengths lie in our "field presence" and "speed of execution." As any organization grows massive, gathering frontline feedback and executing policy decisions inevitably takes considerable time.
In contrast, we maintain real-time, close communication with numerous active pharmacists, enabling us to translate frontline ideas and feedback directly into corporate execution and business models. Through the agility characteristic of a focused organization, we know how to respond dynamically to the market.
Additionally, establishing AI transformation as our top strategic priority has significantly accelerated our decision-making velocity, yielding immediate operational results.
Where onboarding and opening a new chain location previously demanded extensive manual oversight at every stage, we have now automated substantial portions through digital workflows and proprietary systems. Arming a lean organization with advanced capabilities to eliminate distance from the frontline—that is Charmpharm's fundamental competitive advantage.
We have launched many initiatives that did not resolve as rapidly as we initially anticipated.
In the past, we operated under the assumption that "if we build excellent technology and services, pharmacists will naturally adopt them." Yet, after dedicating substantial time and financial resources toward developing sophisticated tools, we discovered that having 'abundant features' is entirely distinct from being 'utilized daily' on the clinical floor. Through that process, we learned the painful lesson that we must clearly differentiate between the "ideal service we want to build" and the "immediate, pressing problem a pharmacist wants to solve today."
Our flagship service, "Banpharm," was a direct outcome of that realization. Rather than attempting to construct a massive pharmacy platform overnight, we decisively solved one specific, highly tedious pain point: medication returns. As daily usage accumulated, inventory data gathered naturally, which subsequently unlocked the next operational stages, such as automated reordering and commerce.
Ultimately, the most invaluable lesson I have gained is that "the grander the vision, the smaller the starting point must be." Attempting to design an expansive architecture from day one often yields nothing; however, definitively solving a single, recurring frontline issue builds the foundational trust and data required for business expansion to unfold organically.
Corporate governance follows the exact same principle. It is a critical period for relinquishing the impulse to excel at everything, prioritizing resource allocation toward the core strengths of our organization.
In the end, focusing on the essence—alleviating frontline pharmacy friction, aggregating data, and connecting it through AI—stands as the most definitive answer Charmpharm has uncovered through years of trial and error.
Q. Ten years from now, how do you hope the name Charmpharm will be remembered?
Because Charmpharm's operational history is relatively young, there are still those to whom our name is unfamiliar. My fundamental aspiration, however, is for Charmpharm to become the brand that consumers trust and seek out without hesitation across every physical and digital setting where licensed pharmacists deliver care and health consultations. Establishing ourselves as the undisputed leader in that space remains our core objective.
Looking further, we aim to leave a distinct footprint across the global market. Countries worldwide have defining healthcare retail brands—such as Walgreens in the United States, Boots in the United Kingdom, or Matsumoto Kiyoshi in Japan.
Following the global momentum of K-beauty and K-medical services, I believe the era of "K-pharmaceutical care" has arrived. I envision a future where Charmpharm locations operate across major global cities, establishing Korean-style pharmaceutical care models as a respected international standard while building an enterprise that contributes meaningfully on the global stage.
These opportunities are materializing as tangible realities. Just prior to COVID-19, a corporate entity in Vietnam proposed launching a local franchise chain, leading to close consultations before being paused by the pandemic. More recently, major pharmaceutical distributors in Mongolia and Central Asia have extended proposals for importing the Charmpharm brand, with detailed negotiations currently underway.
As the prestige of K-culture continues to rise, I am fully convinced that the opportunity to proliferate the "standard of advanced Korean pharmacy care" across the global stage will expand exponentially.
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