Started in 1998 as an MBA graduation project, with a 15,000-euro investment in the first drugstore in Timisoara, Help Net is now one of the major drugstore networks in Romania.

With plans to acquire a niche cosmetics producer to introduce its own brands in its drugstores and a 200-store target over the two or three years, Help Net is one of the fastest-growing players on the domestic market.

"At the time of the MBA graduation, I was working with Farmexim. Help Net was part of my graduation project titled 'The Vertical Integration of a Pharmaceuticals Distributor'. Now, six years on, from a project initiated on paper we have a chain of 95 drugstores," Isabelle Iacob, the general manager and one of the shareholders of Help Net Farma, told ZF in an interview.

Help Net is a part of the Farmexim group, one of the strongest pharmaceuticals distributors and retail groups in Romania. Iacob started the Help Net project with a team of 7 people working from an office within the Farmexim building. Initially tasks were not clearly defined, so as a result "everybody did something of everything". The original plan envisaged 40 drugstores, which were to be opened over a five-year period. However, the company exceeded its expectations before the period was up.

Until 2001, Help Net had not been legally split from Farmexim, but in that year a law was passed that banned distributors from engaging in production operations, or from owning a drugstore network. "I would have liked somebody else to handle this business so that I could have stayed with Farmexim. Ovidiu Buluc (the Farmexim general manager) told me that it was my responsibility and I should take care of it," recounts Isabelle Iacob.

At the time of Help Net's launch, there was little information available on the market regarding this type of business, or even on other distributors. Another reason wh