For many Nigerians, getting the right medicine is not simply a matter of walking into the nearest pharmacy. In underserved and semi-urban communities, patients may struggle to find a reliable pharmacy, verify whether medicines are genuine or speak to a qualified professional before taking them.
Jennifer Esiaba, a licensed pharmacist and founder of Nigerian healthtech startup Mariam Grey, is building a technology platform around that gap.
Founded in 2018, Mariam Grey connects patients with verified pharmacies and licensed pharmacists, allowing them to find medicines, access professional guidance and receive healthcare services without necessarily travelling to a physical pharmacy.
But Esiaba’s approach goes beyond putting a pharmacy online. The platform combines artificial intelligence, telepharmacy, medicine delivery, laboratory services and digital doctor consultations, while also using USSD technology to reach people who do not own smartphones or have reliable internet access.
At the centre of the platform is Mummy Grey, an AI assistant that can provide initial guidance on over-the-counter medicines based on reported symptoms. It can also screen uploaded prescriptions before they are sent to a pharmacist for confirmation, while patients who require further medical attention can book consultations with doctors.
The distinction is important. Mariam Grey is not positioning AI as a replacement for healthcare professionals. Instead, the technology acts as an initial layer of triage, with pharmacists and doctors remaining involved when professional judgement is required.
Esiaba says this is particularly important because much of the digital-health ecosystem has been designed around urban, English-speaking smartphone users. Mariam Grey is deliberately trying to reach the patient who does not fit that profile.
Its USSD service allows people with basic mobile phones to access parts of the platform without an internet connection. The company also provides multilingual support and works through a network of partner pharmacies, creating a physical layer behind the digital platform.
That combination of technology and existing healthcare infrastructure is becoming central to the company’s model.
Rather than building pharmacies itself, Mariam Grey aggregates inventory from partner pharmacies and connects patients to available medicines. Customers can order medicines for home delivery, speak with pharmacists remotely, arrange laboratory sample collection and access digital consultations.
The company says it has now crossed 9,000 active paying patients across multiple Nigerian states and works with hundreds of partner pharmacies. Another recent report put its network at more than 850 partners across 13 states, illustrating the scale the platform is beginning to reach.
Esiaba is now looking to take that growth further. Mariam Grey is raising US$350,000 in pre-seed funding, with plans to use the capital to strengthen its technology infrastructure, develop the product and expand operations across Nigeria.
The immediate target is to grow to 20,000 active patients within the next 18 months, with a longer-term ambition of reaching more than 300,000 patients nationwide.
The company is also beginning to develop specialised healthcare offerings. Its first vertical expansion, Horient Health, focuses on paediatric care, with Esiaba indicating that other condition-specific or demographic-focused services could follow.
For a healthtech company operating in Nigeria, however, growth is not only a technology challenge. Trust, regulation, medicine quality and reliable delivery all become more complicated as the network expands.
Mariam Grey says it has invested in trusted pharmacy partnerships, regulatory compliance, quality assurance and technology designed to work in low-resource environments. Those elements are particularly important in a sector where an incorrect medicine or inappropriate medical advice can have serious consequences.
The company has also introduced a subscription model and Grey Card loyalty programme to encourage repeat use among its growing customer base. Its revenues currently come from patient orders alongside recurring subscription income.
What Esiaba is building therefore sits somewhere between a digital pharmacy, telehealth service and healthcare infrastructure platform.
The bigger idea is that accessing healthcare should not depend entirely on owning a smartphone, living in a major city or physically reaching the right pharmacy.
By combining AI with pharmacists, doctors, laboratories, delivery networks and even basic mobile phones, Mariam Grey is attempting to build a healthcare access model around the realities of how millions of Nigerians actually live.
And for Esiaba, the opportunity is not simply to make medicine easier to order. It is to use technology to close one of the most difficult gaps in healthcare: the distance between the patient who needs care and the system that is supposed to provide it.
