We want to be upfront about what this article is and what it is not. It is not a formal study. We are a small early-stage company and we do not have the sample size or the methodology to produce a peer-reviewed analysis of cost savings across Brazilian independent pharmacies. What we have is a set of observations from a real group of pilot pharmacies that used Covalenty over several months in late 2025 and early 2026. We are sharing what we observed because we think it is genuinely useful, and we want to be honest about the limits of that data.
Who Participated in the Pilot
Our pilot group consisted of independent pharmacies in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area, ranging from small neighborhood farmacias to slightly larger bairro-level operations. All were independently owned, none were affiliated with a national chain, and all had existing relationships with at least two or three distributors before joining the platform.
We focused the pilot on generic and similar medications (medicamentos genericos and similares) for a straightforward reason: this is where price variation between distributors is most meaningful. For reference medications, the CMED ceiling is typically higher and distributor margins are somewhat less variable. For generics, the ceiling is lower, margins are tighter, and distributors respond more actively to demand signals. A distributor that is long on a generic SKU will sometimes offer materially better terms than one that is short.
What Price Comparison Actually Showed
The core function of Covalenty is showing real-time prices from multiple distributors side by side. Before using the platform, most pilot participants were comparing prices by making sequential phone calls, which is slow and which introduces a specific bias: you rarely call every distributor on your list before accepting a price, because the time cost of the next call is real and the price you already have seems acceptable.
With the platform, the comparison happens in one search. A pharmacy looking for losartan potassico 50mg boxes might see four or five distributor offers simultaneously, ranging across a price band. In the cases we observed, the spread between the highest and lowest price for the same product on the same day ranged from around 5 percent to over 15 percent, depending on the product and the week.
That spread sounds small when you talk about it for a single product. It is less small when you apply it across a monthly stock order for a pharmacy that purchases 60 to 80 different generic SKUs.
Where the Real Gains Come From
The more interesting observation was not just price per unit but which products showed the most variation. A handful of high-volume generics, the ones every independent pharmacy stocks in quantity, drove most of the observable price differences. These are products like metformin, enalapril, losartan, omeprazole, and amoxicillin in standard doses: medications that are purchased in volume, that have multiple competing generic manufacturers, and that multiple distributors carry simultaneously.
For products like these, distributor pricing fluctuates based on how much they bought from manufacturers at their last replenishment, what their current inventory is, and whether they are trying to move product before a price cap adjustment takes effect. A distributor that overbought a specific generic will sometimes offer aggressive pricing for a few weeks. Under the old phone-based system, a pharmacy only learns about that offer if they happen to call that distributor that week. On the platform, it shows up automatically.
Several pilot pharmacies told us that they had been buying certain products from the same distributor for years, out of habit and relationship, and the platform showed them that a different distributor had been consistently cheaper for those same products during the pilot period. Not dramatically cheaper, but consistently cheaper by a margin that adds up over months.
What Did Not Change
It would be misleading to say the platform eliminates all the advantages of long-standing distributor relationships. It does not. Pharmacies that have been working with a distributor for years often have informal credit flexibility, priority during shortages, and the kind of accumulated goodwill that matters when a product goes out of stock nationally and distributors are rationing supply. Those benefits do not show up in a price comparison table.
We observed that pilot pharmacies tended to keep their main distributor relationships intact and used the platform primarily to identify better prices for products where their usual distributor was not competitive. This is a rational approach. You do not abandon a distributor relationship over a 6 percent price difference on one product if that relationship gets you favorable terms during a supply crunch three months later.
The platform is a price-discovery tool. It does not replace the judgment that pharmacy operators bring to managing distributor relationships, and it would be a mistake to use it as if it did.
Delivery Terms Matter as Much as Unit Price
One thing that surprised some pilot participants was how much delivery terms varied alongside price. Two distributors offering the same product at similar unit prices might have delivery windows that differ by two or three days. For a pharmacy managing stock tightly, that difference matters: ordering from a distributor that delivers in two days instead of four means you can hold less safety stock on that product, which has its own carrying cost.
We display delivery time alongside price in search results. Several pharmacies told us they had not previously thought about delivery speed as a meaningful variable in their distributor selection, partly because under the phone-based system it was one more thing to ask and remember across multiple calls. When it is visible on a single screen next to the price, it factors into the decision more naturally.
Honest Assessment
Our pilot is small. We are not claiming it is representative of all independent pharmacies in Brazil or that the savings pattern we observed will hold across every pharmacy type or every product category. What we can say is that for the pharmacies in our pilot, having real-time price visibility across multiple distributors led them to make different purchasing decisions than they would have made without it, and those decisions generally resulted in lower per-unit costs on generic medications.
We will continue sharing what we learn as the platform grows. If you are a pharmacist or pharmacy owner in Brazil and want to see what the price comparison looks like for your specific product list, the free tier of Covalenty is there for exactly that purpose.
