Wie Pharmaoffer mit OPP Escrow Vertrauen im Online-Markt für pharmazeutische Rohstoffe schafft

Drug shortages and expensive medicines are a problem worldwide, and the market for pharmaceutical raw materials is complex and opaque. Pharmaoffer gives medicine makers direct access to qualified suppliers at fair prices. Buyers search for a material, filter to the relevant suppliers, make contact through the platform, and Pharmaoffer facilitates the order once both sides agree.

The partnership: validated parties, validated payments

Pharmaoffer validates every buyer and supplier on its platform, from pharmaceutical certifications to the paperwork needed to trade in raw materials. For the financial side of each transaction, it needed a partner that validates the payments with the same rigour. That is the division of labour with OPP.

OPP and Pharmaoffer partnered to make online trading safe in a market that had always run on personal contacts. OPP Escrow holds the buyer’s money until the raw materials arrive, and supplier subscriptions and Pharmaoffer’s margin are settled automatically. The next step the two companies set out was paying suppliers in more currencies.

The challenge: a market most providers would not touch

Pharmaceutical raw materials are a regulated, high-value trade, and many payment providers will not facilitate it at all. When Pharmaoffer went looking for a payment partner, most conversations ended almost as soon as they began, because the provider’s general terms and conditions excluded the pharmaceutical industry. OPP was the exception: before saying yes or no, it wanted to understand how Pharmaoffer had made its platform reliable.

“Other providers quickly cut the conversation short by saying that the general terms and conditions do not allow them to facilitate payments for parties operating in the pharmaceutical industry. Online Payment Platform was interested to hear what we want to achieve and how we have set up our platform to ensure precisely that a reliable environment is created. Our question needed customisation and to deliver this we found in them a unique partner.”

Ammar Badwy, CEO of Pharmaoffer

Our solution: escrow between strangers, and margins settled automatically

OPP handles both the suppliers’ subscription payments and the payments between buyers and suppliers, and uses multi-split to settle Pharmaoffer’s margin on each transaction along the way. The transaction payments run on OPP Escrow: when an order is placed, the buyer’s money is held until the goods are received, and only then paid to the supplier.

OPP holds the licences PSD2 requires, which for Pharmaoffer confirmed the choice. The integration went smoothly, with personal support from OPP’s technical experts.

The impact: a platform used in more than 185 countries

Medicine makers and suppliers now get a seamless payment experience, and escrow has become one of Pharmaoffer’s strongest selling points in a market where trust decides whether a deal happens. The pandemic pushed an industry used to trading at exchanges towards digital, and Pharmaoffer grew faster than anticipated; the platform is used in more than 185 countries.

What this means for you: why B2B marketplaces in regulated sectors need escrow

If you run a B2B marketplace in a sector that most payment providers avoid, Pharmaoffer’s experience is worth knowing: the right partner asks how you keep your platform reliable, and builds the payment flow around it. Escrow then does for the money what your validation does for the parties.

Want to see how escrow could work for your marketplace? Get in touch to learn more.