Program and grad year: BSc(Pharm)’88, MBA’94
Career: Vice President Commercial Development, Light AI. Founder and CEO of 36 Eight Technologies, Inc.
John Tse has spent his career asking what pharmacists could do next
When John Tse, BSc(Pharm)’88, MBA’94, graduated from UBC, community pharmacy looked very different than it does today.
Over the course of his career, Tse has been involved in many of the changes that have expanded the role of community pharmacists, from pharmacy automation and new models of patient care to vaccination and other clinical services.
That career-long contribution to the evolution of pharmacy practice is being recognized with the 2026 UBC Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Alumni Agent of Change Award.
For Tse, being recognized by UBC is particularly significant.
“This is different because this is from the university,” he said. “This is pharmacy itself and this is where I received my training, my education… It’s profoundly meaningful because this is where it started.”
Making more room for patient care
Tse spent much of his career with London Drugs, where he served as Vice President of Pharmacy and Cosmetics. During that time, he became interested in how technology and changes to pharmacy workflow could give pharmacists more opportunities to use their clinical training.
That included introducing pharmacy automation and robotic dispensing. Tse emphasized to staff that the technology wasn't intended to replace people, but to shift some of the technical work and create more time for patient care.
His teams also rethought where the pharmacist stands in the dispensing process. One change brought pharmacists to the front counter at prescription intake, so they could speak with patients and review medication profiles at the very start rather than at the end. Positioning the pharmacist there meant clinical questions, a drug interaction, a dosing concern, a gap in therapy, could be identified and resolved before a prescription was ever dispensed, often in conversation with the patient, their physician and other health professionals. Moving the pharmacist to the front of the workflow was difficult at first, and changing long-established routines took time and adjustment. But the approach is now widely adopted, and Tse says it proved its value by catching and correcting problems early, when they are easiest to address.
Expanding what pharmacists can do
Over the years, Tse was involved in a wide range of initiatives, including pharmacist-led INR management, travel medicine, oral cancer screening and vaccination.
One example came in 2009, during preparations for the H1N1 influenza season and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Tse was among a group of pharmacy and retail leaders who met with the provincial government about the role community pharmacies could play in increasing vaccination capacity.
As BC moved to enable pharmacists to administer injections, Tse and his colleagues at London Drugs worked quickly to prepare. Their team developed protocols with clinical input and shared their work with government, the College of Pharmacists of BC, the BC Pharmacy Association and UBC to help support implementation across the profession.
That collaborative approach has been important throughout Tse's career. When exploring new services, he describes involving regulators, government and other health professionals early, particularly when an initiative was new or existing standards were still developing.
Continuing to explore new approaches
Tse left London Drugs nearly a decade ago and has continued to work at the intersection of pharmacy, healthcare and technology.
Today, that includes consulting with Light AI on technology that uses computer vision to support the assessment of conditions such as strep throat. Tse sees potential for tools like this to complement pharmacists' clinical skills and make care more accessible in all communities, large and small.
He has been and still is advocating for a much greater role for pharmacists in medicinal cannabinoids and argues they should be the ones authorizing (prescribing) these products for the patients who need them. His interest began as Canada moved toward cannabis legalization, when he saw that pharmacists were uniquely equipped to fill this role. As the medication experts, he says, pharmacists are best positioned to make these decisions: advising on route of administration (bioavailability) and product selection, managing dosing, titration and potential drug interactions, and capturing the real-world evidence on how patients use these products and how well they may or may not work. The legislative change to enable this won't come easily, and Tse acknowledges it will take time. But it's a change he believes the profession should actively fight for because putting cannabinoid authorization in the hands of the clinicians who understand medications best is, in his view, exactly where it belongs. To help move that vision forward, he worked with clinical and technology colleagues to develop a decision-support platform for medicinal cannabinoids.
For Tse, these projects are part of an ongoing interest in how pharmacy practice can continue to evolve while keeping patient needs at the centre.
“The main focus is the patient,” he said. “Always is the patient.”
Advice for the next generation
Asked what advice he would give students and early-career pharmacists, Tse encourages them to be curious about how practice could improve, but also thoughtful about how change happens.
He recommends starting with the needs of patients, doing the research, understanding the regulatory environment and drawing on the expertise of others. He also encourages pharmacists to question existing approaches when they see opportunities to improve care.
“Challenge that paradigm thinking,” he said. “Don't violate it, but challenge it.”
After decades in the profession, Tse says he remains grateful for the opportunities he's had and interested in contributing where he can.
“The profession has treated me well, and if I can find ways to give back, and support, I consistently will do so.”