Pharmacy Business Magazine July 2003 (Article)

A1 Pharma Plc - The early years
Told by Gary Lewis MRPharmS co-founder & CEO of A1 Pharmaceuticals Plc.

"Gary and Carmen outside their family house"

The story of two young pharmacists and a Brixton shop girl who founded a thriving £25 million turnover healthcare company.

I was very fortunate that my father was both a religious man and had a keen eye for the ladies, one summer afternoon he said 'It's about time you met a nice girl, there's a beautiful brunette at our local church'. I took his advice, to the amazement of our local vicar, and became a regular attendant at church, much to my Father's amusement. It was love at first sight but little did I know that this was also the start of a highly successful business partnership.

At 16 Carmen was living alone in a Brixton bedsit, working a strenuous fifty-hour week at Woolgars Delicatessen and learning early on in life that hard work and commitment produce results. Carmen studied at Secretarial College where she achieved a distinction in Economics. In-between lectures she worked with Gordon McKenzie and John Darcy at Duncan's Chemist chain and rapidly became the 'Star' sales assistant.

I met Gordon in 1985 at Duncan's pharmacy in Peckham when I was sent over by John to manage him. When I arrived at the pharmacy his assistant was busy with a pile of prescriptions and a long queue of customers, Gordon was sitting reading The Financial Times, my first words were "Good morning Gordon, don't you think it's be a good idea to give this lady a hand?" He replied "I can't afford to do that at the moment, I'm making thousands of pounds a day on the stock market and my broker will be calling at any moment". I saw the funny side of this and we went on to become good friends.

That evening at a pub in Peckham we found we had something in common we were both Pharmacists and wanted to start a business, outside of the retail pharmacy sector. Gordon decided to call the company A1. We were both impressed with Carmen's prowess in sales, which Gordon had witnessed whilst working alongside her at Duncan's and noticed that she was well liked by staff and customers alike, we decided to approach her with the idea of her being our first full time sales manager.

Gordon was a great mentor and inspiration to us both, at the age of 10 his father gave him a birthday present of £50 which he invested in the stock market and grew into £50,000 by the age of 21. We were fascinated when Gordon said 'We'll do the same with A1, start with little to no capital and turn it into a multi-million enterprise'.

Our first products were purchased after a visit to a trade fair in 1986. We imported toiletry bags, which we filled with combs, mirrors and hairbrushes in the evenings at our small council flat in Kennington. On Carmen's first day in sales she was dropped off by Gordon at the head office of Millers Chemist chain in east London with little advice and no price list. Carmen attempted the sales pitch that Gordon had armed her with, but to her horror they began to negotiate prices. Having no idea of what the products cost she took out her calculator and did her best to portray the impression that she knew what she was doing. John Miller and his wife agreed prices and to Carmen's surprise she walked out with a £600 order. That evening over dinner back at the flat Gordon worked out that Carmen had made a profit of over £200. We all celebrated Carmen's first success and she went on to repeat the performance on a daily basis never failing to return in the evening without a sale.

In 1985 I had sent a letter hand written on the back of an airmail envelope to the manufacturers of Super 25 Cigarette Filters after the UK distributor failed to pay me my commission, I guessed they may do the same to their supplier. Twelve months later I received a letter back from the new export manager, it said if I was still interested the agency it was ours. In the autumn of 1986 we received our first export carton of Super 25 Cigarette Filters. Carmen showed early signs of her not inconsiderable business acumen when she successfully re-negotiated her terms, £50 per week and a 1/3 in the partnership

In the first year we turned over £30,000 and made only a small £2000 profit but it was a start. We had nothing to lose apart from the long hours of hard sweat and toil. A1 was founded with only £2250 and we never loaned a penny until my Father invested £30,000 but that was only after achieving annual sales of over £2 million.

Sadly Gordon left us in 1990 for family reasons when the company's turnover was only £200,000 a year. I then joined Carmen in a fulltime commitment to A1 within 24 months on our own efforts without any employees we increased the sales turnover to £1.5 million with our own label OTC products. We were pleasantly surprised at the incredible results within the first two years of Gordon leaving and decided to expand and build a larger team.

In April 1988 when heavily pregnant Carmen continued to work, a story that has often been recalled by Nitin Patel of Walworth Pharmacy. During her usual sales visit he asked her when the baby was due, Carmen casually replied 'yesterday' On 11th April 1988 Carmen went in to hospital and our first son Harry was born. One week later she was back at work. Our second son Tom was born 20 months later on Christmas day in 1989. Unbelievably, against my advice she was back at work on top form by December 27th. Carmen has set incredible standards of commitment with zero absenteeism apart from a few days off work for two pregnancies.

Carmen was the dream sales person, worked 70 hours a week in the field plus a further 20 hours administration in the evenings with no breaks, holidays or car and she made a profit every single day. Carmen set standards and record sales which others have tried to follow but proved hard to better. Her call rates were 20-45 per day and Carmen opened up a record 1100 new accounts over 12 months. There was never a day in her career when she did not open a new account and take an order. Carmen has and will continue to be loved by all who come into contact with her for the true caring professional she is.

The company I am sure will continue to expand and grow and achieve new levels of performance but I will always look back with pride at the early days when Carmen and I stood alone and overcame all the odds that were stacked against us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our loyal customers and suppliers for helping make our success possible.