Adam Silvertown: the man behind Pace Pharmacy
Tucked away on quiet Isabella Street in downtown Toronto, a couple clues inside the pharmacy hint that this isn’t a big-box drugstore chain. Colourful canvas paintings decorate the wall above shelves of drugs and supplements (the space is donated to Sanctuary, a local shelter for the homeless and at-risk, to display their art; the paintings alternate every few months. Once, a patient even bought a painting; all proceeds went to the artist). As for the back of the store, it's separated by a large glass pane, a laboratory peeks through under the large sign “COMPOUNDING LAB” emblazoned beside Pace’s logo.
The independent pharmacy has a much larger online presence than its brick-and-mortar form. Pace's Twitter account has attracted over 3,000 followers. Business was slow when Adam Silvertown first opened the pharmacy in July 2010, so he’d spend his free time reading health news online.
“I thought it could be interesting for people to hear about, so I started tweeting it,” said Silvertown. “I figured why else would anyone follow a pharmacy if they’re not going to get anything health-related? I’m not going to tell people about my paper towel sales because no one cares. It’s all about sharing information.”
He's tried posting on Facebook and Foursquare too, but it quickly got “boring.”
Surrounded by Shoppers Drug Marts and Rexalls in the high-traffic Yonge and Bloor location, Pace offers an alternative for people who need a pharmacy and prefer shopping at independent mom-and-pop shops. But being smaller isn’t enough.
“We need to have some sort of advantage over the big guys. We can’t compete with their 30,000-square foot stores, their Life brand products, and super discounts on everything. But I can offer products they never will or don’t have at the time.”
Pace specialises in compounding medicine; preparing custom-made medications for patients. Compounding medicine helps patients who are allergic or sensitive to certain preservative dyes, cannot swallow pills, have bad reactions to a medicine's taste, or need a different drug strength or dose.
Larger chain pharmacies can compound medicine, but they don't do it as often and not to the extent of specialisation a smaller pharmacy will go to.
“We get a lot of referrals from other pharmacies sending their patients to us. They get prescriptions they can’t fill because they don’t carry the ingredients or don’t know how to make the mixture,” said Silvertown. He says Pace has good relationships with other pharmacies, and he doesn’t see it as competition. “We’re not looking to steal their patients, we’re looking to help them out.”
Compounding troubles
Silvertown has received extensive education in compounding medicine; from specialized training at Medisca, the University of Florida, and Professional Compounding Centres of America (PCAA) on top of graduating pharmacy school from the University of Toronto. Even still though, he runs into issues every so often.
“Sometimes you have to figure things out; it’s not just cut and dry, mix this and that. You’ll get mixtures, for one reason or another, don’t actually work to make a nice finished product. I have to play with it and that’s where our expertise come in,” said Silvertown. “Your typical pharmacy might not be able to do that. They could say ‘sure we’ll mix these together’ but it may not work, instead it might look funny, smell bad, or precipitate out.”
“Some patients have come to us and said ‘my pharmacist said they could compound this, but it doesn’t work, or it hurts.’ We can do it, I can tell you. I know how to do it properly. It takes experience and proper training.”
Helping people living with HIV/AIDS
At a six-minute walk away from the heart of Church-Wellesley, Toronto’s LGBT-oriented community, Pace has more exposure to patients living with HIV/AIDS than the average pharmacy.
“We see a lot of people who are on antiretroviral medication and we can accommodate their needs more so than other pharmacies,” said Silvertown. “Whether it’s having medication in stock—not every pharmacy does because it’s expensive on hand—or other things that come along hand-in-hand with it, such as billing, insurance, vitamins and supplements are a big part, too. They may get other types of illnesses and are prone to certain infections.”
Along with donating wall space in the pharmacy for a local shelter to display their drop-in group’s art, Pace also donates to the Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS) monthly to support meetings for men affected by AIDS. He is involved in the annual Scotiabank AIDS walk, “we actually didn’t get to walk in it this year, but they walked right by us here on Isabella. Rather than walking, I thought we could show support, so I set up a table outside and handed out Gatorade.”
You can find Adam and his staff at 14 Isabella St. (Yonge and Bloor). Pace Pharmacy is also open as a free pickup location for HealthSnap orders.