India, Sept. 6 -- For most consumer businesses, a lower price is a unique selling proposition (USP). But for Zeelab Pharmacy founder and CEO Rohit Mukul, it is a more fundamental need and a way to correct a market where consumers have historically had little choice.

Mukul's thesis is rooted in socialist thinking, which began taking shape in 2018, after he returned from the London School of Economics (LSE) and started spending time understanding and studying India's pharmaceutical ecosystem, comprising manufacturers, doctors, distributors and pharmacies.

His diagnosis was straightforward: too many middlemen in the supply chain were bloating prices. "A Rs.10 medicine takes a long and expensive journey before reaching the consumer, with mu...