Alto Pharmacy's guest appearances

Alto Pharmacy

The Modern Retail Podcast

Make the Future - Ottawa's Tech Podcast

The Tech Trek

OwlTail

Matt Gamache-Asselin

Healthcare and insurance aren’t the sexiest areas, but they are both ripe for disruption.That’s why Matt Gamache-Asselin, co-founder and CEO of Alto Pharmacy, decided to enter the space, as he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. The five-year-old company has raised over $350 million thus far and has been building digital pharmacy to compete with the likes of CVS and Walgreens.Pharmacies are a big umbrella to tackle. Gamache-Asselin estimated the entire industry to be worth half a trillion dollars. For him and his co-founder, the idea was to first and foremost fix one very big problem: health insurance. Rather than selling over-the-counter prescriptions or charging a concierge fee for healthcare services, Alto is quite simply an online pharmacy that works directly with insurance companies. He described going to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription as “an experience I think everyone would agree is bad -- if not at least kind of weird.”To figure out how to go about it, Alto bought a small pharmacy in the Bay Area and to understand the industry. He learned “how different operationally [pharmacies are] from retail,” he said. From there, the company launched its digital platform -- which is now available in five major U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.On the program, Gamache-Asselin spoke about the overall pharmacy industry, and why he believes there’s so much room for improvement. He’s even excited about the big dogs coming in. “What I’m most excited about is the new entrants into the space,” he said, “especially a company like Amazon.” Why? In his words: “It can be a bit of a wedge to drive change -- which is clearly sorely needed.”

Healthcare and insurance aren’t the sexiest areas, but they are both ripe for disruption.That’s why Matt Gamache-Asselin, co-founder and CEO of Alto Pharmacy, decided to enter the space, as he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. The five-year-old company has raised over $350 million thus far and has been building digital pharmacy to compete with the likes of CVS and Walgreens.Pharmacies are a big umbrella to tackle. Gamache-Asselin estimated the entire industry to be worth half a trillion dollars. For him and his co-founder, the idea was to first and foremost fix one very big problem: health insurance. Rather than selling over-the-counter prescriptions or charging a concierge fee for healthcare services, Alto is quite simply an online pharmacy that works directly with insurance companies. He described going to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription as “an experience I think everyone would agree is bad -- if not at least kind of weird.”To figure out how to go about it, Alto bought a small pharmacy in the Bay Area and to understand the industry. He learned “how different operationally [pharmacies are] from retail,” he said. From there, the company launched its digital platform -- which is now available in five major U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.On the program, Gamache-Asselin spoke about the overall pharmacy industry, and why he believes there’s so much room for improvement. He’s even excited about the big dogs coming in. “What I’m most excited about is the new entrants into the space,” he said, “especially a company like Amazon.” Why? In his words: “It can be a bit of a wedge to drive change -- which is clearly sorely needed.”

‘An experience that’s bad, or at least a little weird’: Alto Pharmacy’s Matt Gamache-Asselin on why he entered the space

Ken Farmer

Meet:  Ken is the data engineering manager at Alto Pharmacy - which offers free, same-day medication delivery to customers.   Alto's data engineering team supports the entire business with a large focus on improving the logistical efficiency of the organization. Ken's career has focused on data engineering in which he has held a variety of roles in management,  data engineering, and data architecture roles, and worked as both an employee and consultant.   Ken feels that data engineering is a specialization of software engineering - and benefits from many of the same process innovations - around testing, agile, DevOps, and dataops methodologies. What you’ll learn: What does a modern data warehousing solution look like Data engineering shift from GUI tools to software engineering Data engineering viewed as specialized software engineering If you would like to get in touch with Ken regarding anything discussed on this episode, please connect via: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenfar/

Meet:  Ken is the data engineering manager at Alto Pharmacy - which offers free, same-day medication delivery to customers.   Alto's data engineering team supports the entire business with a large focus on improving the logistical efficiency of the organization. Ken's career has focused on data engineering in which he has held a variety of roles in management,  data engineering, and data architecture roles, and worked as both an employee and consultant.   Ken feels that data engineering is a specialization of software engineering - and benefits from many of the same process innovations - around testing, agile, DevOps, and dataops methodologies. What you’ll learn: What does a modern data warehousing solution look like Data engineering shift from GUI tools to software engineering Data engineering viewed as specialized software engineering If you would like to get in touch with Ken regarding anything discussed on this episode, please connect via: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenfar/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenfar/</a>

Modern data warehousing and data engineering viewed as specialized software engineering with Ken Farmer, Data Engineering Manager at Alto Pharmacy

Olivier Miguel

Episode 2In this episode I am chatting with with Mattieu Gamache-Asselin, a class of 2012 alumnus who is the co-founder and CEO of Alto Pharmacy in San Francisco and Olivier Miguel, a class of 2016 alumnus who is currently pursuing his masters degree in Biomedical Engineering at uOttawa with the Clinical Biomechanics Research Unit.  We will discuss how impactful technology and entrepreneurship can help Make the Future in the health care sector. I also hope to offer you a glimpse into the role that the uOttawa community is playing in the thriving tech and innovation sector. Time Stamp 2:18—What pushed Mattieu Gamache-Asselin towards entrepreneurship?5:00—How does Mattieu sleep at night with so many people depending on him? How can we achieve an impact?7:40—How do you do right by your employees and clients?8:30—How does one balance the responsibilities to others in a field like healthcare?12:30—How do you grow as a company while putting your clients safety first?16:18—How can 3D printing evolve? Is it scalable?28:05—What have others who’ve attempted online pharmacies missed? What makes Alto different?----more---- Produced by uOttawa Faculty of Engineering. Make the Future Podcast

Episode 2 In this episode I am chatting with with Mattieu Gamache-Asselin, a class of 2012 alumnus who is the co-founder and CEO of Alto Pharmacy in San Francisco and Olivier Miguel, a class of 2016 alumnus who is currently pursuing his masters degree in Biomedical Engineering at uOttawa with the Clinical Biomechanics Research Unit.  We will discuss how impactful technology and entrepreneurship can help Make the Future in the health care sector. I also hope to offer you a glimpse into the role that the uOttawa community is playing in the thriving tech and innovation sector. Time Stamp 2:18—What pushed Mattieu Gamache-Asselin towards entrepreneurship? 5:00—How does Mattieu sleep at night with so many people depending on him? How can we achieve an impact? 7:40—How do you do right by your employees and clients? 8:30—How does one balance the responsibilities to others in a field like healthcare? 12:30—How do you grow as a company while putting your clients safety first? 16:18—How can 3D printing evolve? Is it scalable? 28:05—What have others who’ve attempted online pharmacies missed? What makes Alto different?----more---- Produced by uOttawa Faculty of Engineering. <a href="https://engineering.uottawa.ca/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Make the Future Podcast</a>