Farmais "casts its net" on independent, neighborhood pharmacies and those in small towns.

The fragmentedpharmaceutical retail market in Brazil is the sea that Farmais has found to fish for its growth. Based on franchises, the network, with a base of 276 stores, has developed an expansion plan for the year based on converting small businesses.

Farmais has identified approximately 45,000 independent pharmacies with an average monthly revenue below R$150,000. In total, there are more than 93,700 pharmacies in the country.

“Half of the market is below that revenue, and in the last five years, these are the pharmacies that have closed the most stores,” Ricardo Kunimi , CEO of Farmais, told NeoFeed .

"If we consider that, on average, they earn R$ 100,000 per month, we're talking about more than R$ 4 billion. That's a lot of revenue," he adds.

In line with projections for the pharmaceutical retail sector, Farmais aims to grow its revenue by 11% this year, exceeding the R$1.17 billion recorded in 2025. They also plan to open 60 new stores, with 18 contracts already signed.

“We broadened our scope. Before, our focus was on pharmacies with monthly revenue above R$ 300,000,” says Kunimi.

Farmais' strategy is based on the fact that these pharmacies – many of them neighborhood pharmacies or located in smaller cities – are becoming increasingly vulnerable as large chains like RD , DPSP , and Pague Menos accelerate their expansion.

Farmais itself knows all too well what it's like to experience both sides of the coin. At its peak, the chain had 500 units. This level was reached when the operation was one of the brands of BR Pharma, a group created by BTG Pactual in 2009 with the plan to consolidate the pharmaceutical retail sector.

However, ten years later, BR Pharma went bankrupt. In that process, Farmais was bought by 34 of its franchisees – including Kunimi – for approximately R$ 4 million in a judicial auction. And, since then, it has embarked on a plan to restructure and grow its operations again.

Shopping, data, and artificial intelligence.

In this new phase of expansion, the Southeast region – particularly Rio de Janeiro – as well as the South and Northeast regions are priorities. The arguments to attract and convince these smaller pharmacies to convert are packaged with a range of tools and technologies. These latter tools are increasingly boosted by the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

This involves, for example, connecting pharmacies to the Farmais purchasing platform, which centralizes orders placed across the entire network. With greater bargaining power, Kunimi says the company has access to prices that are, on average, 5 to 8% cheaper.

Using AI, the company also offers a management platform that provides resources to improve these purchases, bringing information about which items to order and in what quantities.

The tool also performs an "X-ray" of the store, mapping which products are not selling, which are most sought after in that location – which, often, the store does not offer – and the average prices of the competition in the region. "With this, this smaller pharmacy starts to get back in the game," says the CEO.

This package also includes a marketplace and a loyalty program. In addition to the network's own brands, which this year plans to launch 20 products and surpass the mark of 150 SKUs, especially in the supplements and perfumery categories.

Dubbed "Crescer" (Grow), the project that now serves as inspiration for this expansion thesis began to be implemented internally about eight months ago. Of the 40 stores involved, 32 have already increased their revenue, with 19 exceeding the R$150,000 monthly mark.

“Until then, these smaller stores were a problem, as they were dragging down our average monthly ticket, which is R$ 350,000 per store,” says Kunimi. “And when we saw that the project was working so well, we understood that it was time to take it outside of our company.”

If you can't beat them, join them.

Positioned between the large and small players in the pharmaceutical retail market, Farmais also emphasizes the importance of bringing the latter into its network in a context where several issues are impacting the sector. The first of these is the rise of slimming pens .

“These products have low profit margins, but they attract customers. If I don’t sell the pen, the consumer will go to the competitor,” he says. “And the fact is that small businesses also don’t have access, because they’re not in the priority tier of the laboratories. But we are, right after the big chains.”

The second issue is the growing competition from marketplaces, especially in the hygiene, perfumery, and cosmetics categories, and from Mercado Livre , which has recently shown signs that it may advance even further in this area.

Here, one of Farmais' responses is the launch, in the coming weeks, of its own store on the Mercado Livre platform. In other words, following the logic that if you can't beat them, join them.

“Mercado Livre will focus more on supplements, which represent 10% to 15% of our business. And yes, that's a worrying share,” he says. “So, our reaction is to play their game.”