Chronical Drugs Medical Scheme (CDMS) aggregates the demand of small and medium-sized hospitals for non-communicable disease (NCD) drugs in order to decrease procurement costs and obtain quantity discounts from pharmaceutical companies and wholesalers. To help patients take advantage of lower drug prices, CDMS also offers a pre-screening programme. In this way, high-risk patients are identified in the community and people with elevated blood pressure or sugar are referred to a precontracted ‘hub’ hospital, where they benefit from lower costs.

The venture is based on the business model that CDMS receives a commission from hospitals for NCD drugs.

CDMS is a registered social enterprise in Kenya. Since its launch in 2019, CDMS has been able to reduce NCD drug prices by 18% for more than 230 partner hospitals currently. These partner hospitals are registered on the venture’s eCommerce platform so they can benefit from the lower product prices that result from joint purchasing. CDMS has also developed TeCLA, an NCD training programme for clinical staff. Until today TeCLA has trained 1,093 clinicians.