And sometimes, it only takes one thing to make getting better harder. Your pharmacy courier doesn’t deliver all the medication you need. You experience a side effect before you can get another appointment with your doctor. Your repeat medication runs out too soon or the tablet you’ve been prescribed is simply too big to swallow. Small problems like these can quickly become barriers to getting the care you need.
So, to manage the discomfort, you cut the tablet in half or skip it altogether. You tell yourself you’ll mention the side effect at your next appointment. But when that appointment comes, time is limited, and there are bigger health concerns to discuss.
You repeat yourself to the receptionist, your GP and the pharmacy. You keep track of when your repeat prescription is due and remember when it needs to be renewed. You chase the pharmacy when your medication hasn’t arrived. And you have to manage all of this while you’re already feeling unwell.
Ivan spent four years behind that pharmacy counter. Every time someone left with a little brown bag, he couldn’t help wondering: Did the medicine fit their life? Did something change? Did they keep taking the meds? Once Ivan saw that gap, he couldn’t stop seeing it. So he started thinking: what if the pharmacy didn’t disappear the moment the little brown medicine bag changed hands? What if you didn’t become the one doing all the work? That’s why ALEMÈ exists: so that you don’t have to maintain your health alone.
But for something like this to work, we first had to understand the past. Long before pharmacies became rows of shelves and a counter, there was the officina — Latin for a workshop. A place where medicine was prepared for the person who would need it. And somewhere along the way, we kept the medicine but lost the life around it.
A pharmacy was once a workshop — a place where medicine was prepared around the person who needed it.
Modern medicine at scale has done enormous good. But it is necessarily designed around populations, standards and averages.
Treatment may be clinically right and still be difficult to live with. The person holding the prescription matters as much as the prescription itself.
For treatment to keep working, we have to understand what happens after someone walks out of the consultation room or leaves the pharmacy.
Personalised care asks what your body needs.
Biorelational healthcare also asks what your life continuously needs for that treatment to keep working.
Once you see it that way, the prescription stops being the finish line.
It becomes the starting point.
What we were left with is the ALEMÈ officina — a modern pharmacy built around what happens before, during and after the prescription. And it does three things:
Tell your story once. We prepare it for your appointment. Already have a doctor you trust? We work with them. If not, we help you find one.
One person helps manage the prescription, delivery, follow-up and questions. If something changes, we go back to your doctor. You no longer have to manage the handover.
Your treatment should fit your life. For that to work, we consider your routine, your needs and what works for you.
Leave your details to register your interest. We’ll keep you informed as ALEMÈ prepares to launch.
