TriMed’s

Tackling health product waste

What if pharmacists optimised their stocks via a collaborative platform? That is what Jean-Nicolas Vincenti proposes by selling health products before their expiry date at discounted prices.

You can return out-of-date medicines to a pharmacist to limit pollution; their destruction generates heat and electricity. Jean-Nicolas Vincenti proposes to react even earlier to avoid throwing them away. “I want to raise the alarm today about health product waste. People are dying every day because they cannot afford to treat themselves. It’s up to us to adopt an eco-citizen approach,” says this pharmacist and father of two. It all started for him with an internship when he was 14 years old. “Ten years later, I became a pharmacist. I worked in pharmacies in mainland France, Overseas Departments and abroad, but everywhere I noticed the same problem: unsold products that had reached their expiry date.” Having decided to set up his own business, he launched TriMed’s in 2020, initially with his own funds, with a bank loan, and then an honorary loan from the Réseau Initiative Nice Côte d’Azur, before welcoming his first investor in the pharmaceutical sector. The platform offers three services: a B2B formula between pharmacists, allowing them to sell their health products (excluding pharmaceutical monopolies) at discounted prices before they expire; a B2C formula, for individuals with a prescription to buy their medicines on the site; and a final formula for individuals who wish to donate unused non-medicated health products to associations, such as hygiene products and food supplements.

Stop throwing away medicines!

“Some countries, such as Canada and Switzerland, have adopted single prescriptions for medicine to limit waste. The AGEC law on circular economy in France authorises dispensing pharmacists to dispense certain medicines by unit if their pharmaceutical form allows it. But this law has limited applications since a European directive on serialisation requires sealed medicine boxes to combat counterfeiting,” explains Jean-Nicolas Vincenti. “Many of our medicines are produced abroad, in India and China, and as they are cheaper in France for reimbursement, laboratories prefer to sell to countries like Italy or Spain. We regularly hear about stock-outs in pharmacies as a result.”x With this in mind, and to enable pharmacists to limit their losses and take action for the planet, Jean-Vincent Laurenti has developed his platform in Nice, across the Provence-Alpes Côte d’Azur region, as well as in Lyon, Lille, and Paris. Some 19,000 products in total are listed, and 288 pharmacists are participating. The company based in the Monatech start-up incubator plans to raise funds in 2023.  “I want to contribute in my own way to making things happen, knowing that apart from medicines, which are a special case, the AGEC law has prohibited the destruction of unsold non-food items, such as textiles and hygiene products since 2022, to be given priority for donation.”

L’avis du jury

« Dans les métiers de bouche, il y a pour limiter le gaspillage alimentaire le principe du Too Good To Go, que l’on retrouve dans les boulangeries, restaurants et supermarchés. Pensée par un pharmacien, l’initiative de TriMed’s procède de cette même démarche, qui relève du bon sens. »

TriMed’s
Localisation : Nice
Création : 2020
Activité : vente à distance sur catalogue spécialisé
Collaborateurs : 4 associés et 2 alternants
Capital social : 10 500 €