When Mattieu Gamache-Asselin (BASc ’12) was in his mid-twenties, he and a friend, Jamie Karraker, purchased a brick-and-mortar pharmacy in San Francisco’s Mission District. They did so not as medical professionals, but as a pair of software engineers determined to use their experience and skills to improve people’s lives.
Gamache-Asselin had taken several biomedical classes at uOttawa and thought healthcare was a promising space in which to make a real social impact. The pharmacy industry had remained virtually unchanged for several decades and was prime for disruption.
Using their newly acquired pharmacy as a site for observation, the two young entrepreneurs started to understand the challenges faced by doctors, pharmacists, and patients. Market research also revealed that about half of all prescriptions in the United States go unclaimed, resulting in 125,000 avoidable deaths each year.
Identifying the need to do things better, Gamache-Asselin and Karraker launched their startup, Alto Pharmacy, in 2015. The digital pharmacy platform bridges the prescription medication process between doctors, pharmacists, and patients. Alto also finds the best medication savings for patients, oversees free same-day delivery, and creates improved channels of communication between people and pharmacists. The cost-savings element is particularly important in the United States, where many people lack the insurance coverage to afford essential medication.
“We try to add as many features catered to you personally as we can to help you manage those therapies,” explained Gamache-Asselin of Alto’s integrated solution. “We have this deep responsibility to be reliable and safe. We have to get the right meds to you.”
Alto’s services are available in a growing number of locations across the United States, including major markets like New York City, Las Vegas, and Houston. Eight years in, the company has raised $550 million in venture capital, delivered over 4 million prescriptions, and employs 1,200 people. Alto has also acquired other digital health startups to further bolster its services.
Gamache-Asselin says he’s always been fascinated by entrepreneurship, but came to gain a greater appreciation of it during his time at uOttawa. He acknowledges the scrappiness and risk is not for everyone: “It has to be something you want to do and something you get a lot of pleasure and value from,” Gamache-Asselin said in a 2019 interview for the Faculty of Engineering podcast, Make the Future. “You’re in the trenches with your team and you’re trying to fight the big guys. It’s not something you do when you want that safety net.”
The 2023 Awards of Excellence isn’t the first time Gamache-Asselin has been recognized by uOttawa. In 2018, the Faculty of Engineering named him their Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year. Beyond the uOttawa accolades, he and Karraker also made Fortune Magazine’s Top 40 under 40 list in the health and bioscience category in 2018, and in 2020 Gamache-Asselin was named one of the Top 25 Consumer Health Executives.
Overall, Gamache-Asselin says he’s just trying to build a long-lasting and sustainable company that is true to its mission, and that helps the people they’ve hired and the customers they serve.