This Elephant Asks, What’s Your Dosha? - New York Times

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Full article at

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MENTION the name Elephant Pharmacy to people here and the response is,

That’s the drugstore that prescribes yoga. In fact, Elephant Pharm, as

it calls itself, offers a wide variety of alternative remedies — yoga

perhaps being the most mainstream — besides traditional prescriptions.

Such branding is invaluable to a small company like this, which is

striving to carve a niche as the only drugstore in America thinking

outside the big box.

 

Elephant Pharm’s mission is to become a “natural community hub,” where

conventional medicine meets other forms of health care, a combination

that it says is not found in any other drugstore.

 

“In the ’60s it was trendy to go to your herb shop,” said Kathi P.

Lentzsch, chief executive and president of Elephant Pharm. “But this is

more than a trend. This is going to be the drugstore of the future.”

 

Elephant Pharm opened its first drugstore five years ago in Berkeley, on

the fringe of the University of California

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campus, selling natural and alternative medicines, organic groceries and

other holistic products. The store then became a template for two more

emporiums that it recently opened elsewhere in Northern California, San

Rafael and Los Altos (with another to open in Walnut Creek), as part of

a nationwide expansion.

 

The store was so-named because elephants are intelligent and caring, Ms.

Lentzsch said. Its clients, she added, are well-informed baby boomers

and mothers in their 30s and 40s.

 

“Drugstores haven’t changed in 50 years,” Ms. Lentzsch added. “And if

they don’t start to accommodate what customers are learning about on

their own, they will lose that customer base.”

 

The Elephant Pharm experience starts just inside the front door. Yoga

mats, solar-powered radios and a two-speed “mind-expanding head

massager” are displayed. A sign near the cashier asks, What’s your

dosha?, referring to the three body types in ayurvedic medicine. The

store offers up to 100 free classes a month, ranging from animal reiki

to chi nei tsang, a form of holistic Taoist medicine. And for every two

full-time Western practitioners, including pharmacists and registered

nurses, there are three to four full- and part-time Eastern practitioners.

 

Separate pharmacy counters emphasize the range. One fills standard

prescriptions, including pet medicine. A second counter offers Chinese,

Western and ayurvedic herbs. Separating them is a lending library and

bookstore.

 

Elizabeth Quarels, 29, who lives in Berkeley, switched from Longs Drugs

to Elephant Pharm several years ago. On a recent visit, she watched an

herbalist shake some calamus root into a plastic bag after weighing it.

(Calamus, used as an expectorant and anesthetic

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has been banned by the United States Food and Drug Administration

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as a food additive since 1968.) Ms. Quarels dropped it into her shopping

basket next to other cold remedies.

 

“I’m buying the Sudafed because I’ve only had moderate success with the

homeopathic things,” she said. “I don’t have a systematic philosophy. I

just think it’s really cool and neat to try to harness the energy of the

earth to try to heal yourself.”

 

Several large investors have aligned themselves with the store. Last

fall, Elephant Pharm announced that it had raised $26 million in its

third round of financing. Its largest investor and majority shareholder

is the Tudor Investment Corporation. Neither Tudor nor CVS

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one of Elephant Pharm’s earliest investors and the largest retail

pharmacy chain in America with 6,200 stores, would disclose its

contribution. But the Bay Area Equity Fund, a $75 million pot managed by

JPMorgan Chase

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any/index.html?inline=nyt-org>,

said it had contributed $5 million to support the drugstore’s growth.

 

“Baby boomers are not aging the way our grandparents did,” said Nancy

Pfund, a managing director at JPMorgan Chase and a managing partner of

the Bay Area fund. “They are looking for the advice and products that

Elephant Pharm embodies. When people shop in Elephant Pharm, you hear

people say, ‘Look at this and look at that.’ When was the last time you

heard anyone excited about going to Walgreens

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or CVS?”

 

Ms. Lentzsch said that CVS’s decision to support Elephant Pharm was

strategic. “They could never do what we could do because they’ve got the

big bureaucratic company that isn’t nimble,” she said. “It’s a whole

different culture. How could they get to this level in their stores? It

would be very, very difficult.”

 

Elephant Pharm said it had experienced double-digit growth in sales

since it opened. Ms. Lentzsch said the Berkeley store was earning $1,200

per square foot. (The space is about 12,000 square feet.)

 

Mitchell P. Corwin, an equity analyst for Morningstar

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said there were 50,000 drugstores nationwide, with total

prescription-drug sales last year of $275 billion. Chain drugstores make

about 70 percent of total sales from prescriptions, Mr. Corwin said. But

that figure is closer to 30 percent at Elephant Pharm. Ms. Lentzsch said

the store’s success was linked to the items it sells in the front.

 

While the buzz is positive, Elephant must still contend with consumer

habits. “We’ve gotten many notices about Elephant Pharmacy, but we

haven’t been inside yet,” said Dr. Jan Avent, a professor who lives in

Los Altos. “It looks upscale from the street, but I so often try to

either order my prescriptions or buy what I need at Whole Foods

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Ms. Lentzsch said she was proceeding cautiously with Elephant’s

expansion. She added that she fielded phone calls daily from Manhattan

and all over the world.

 

“Until we get our prototype really finessed, I don’t want to roll out

too far away from us,” she said. “But I never say, ‘No, we’re not going

to open a store.’ I just have to tell them ‘not yet.’ I ask them to be

patient, we’ll be there.”