Hamilton pharmacist breaks into US market with new start up

Thursday, 14 May 2026

Hamilton pharmacist Tim O'Donoghue has spent years thinking how people access over-the-counter medicines.

Years of working with patients, researching why people avoid taking medication, and developing self-care products has led to the creation of Healthtex, a pharmaceutical start-up preparing to enter the United States market with plans for 14 FDA-listed products.

So far, the company has one product on sale through Amazon: New Zealand-made Asteroid haemorrhoid cream.

Growing up in Nelson, O'Donoghue’s interest in pharmaceuticals stemmed from a relative who worked as a community pharmacist.

“I was always fascinated by watching them shaking up bottles and putting corks in them,” he recalls.

It sparked a decades-long career spanning community and hospital pharmacy and in the pharmaceuticals industry across New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“I always had the feeling that I was going to have a look at everything.”

After completing his studies at the now-closed Central Institute of Technology School of Pharmacy and spending a few years in Australia, O'Donoghue began working as a locum pharmacist across London.

“You just got to speak to people from so many different walks of life. You didn't know what you're going to hear next and I loved it,” he said.

It was his time in community pharmacies which led to O'Donoghue finding what he describes as his calling: “self care” or over-the-counter medicines.

Not only did they help people, self care medicines benefited the wider health system by easing pressure on key services, he explained.

At the same time he was studying pharmacoeconomics - a study comparing the cost and clinical outcomes of medicines and services - at Keele University. His Masters’ research project examined why patients did or didn’t take prescribed medications.

He found people disliked confusing medical language, felt embarrassed by certain conditions, or didn’t see how treatments fitted into their everyday lives.

Over drinks at the pub and with some Kiwi ingenuity, O’Donoghue and fellow New Zealander John Foreman came up with a plan to create a pharmacy which centred the patients it served: GreenLight.

They put their life savings into buying an old pharmacy in central London and refitted it so the pharmacist could be out front interacting with patients. A basement was transformed into a classroom where pharmacy students observed consultations and local communities learned about common conditions and medicines.

“We were just Kiwis and we were just going for it,” O’Donoghue said.

After starting with a single location near Euston Station, GreenLight today has expanded into 22 pharmacies with 300 staff around London. The chain’s shared ownership scheme meant workers have a claim in the business.

“Not only were we going to address all the medical problems and pharmacy problems and healthcare issues of our communities, we were going to employ people from the community, and we were going to try and create wealth for them.”

Twenty years after moving to the United Kingdom, O’Donoghue returned to New Zealand so his three children could grow up there. He bought Neville Kane pharmacy - now Tui Pharmacy Central - in Hamilton while continuing to run GreenLight remotely.

“We would be sitting on calls with prescribers and so forth who didn't realise that you were speaking to them at 2 o'clock in the morning from New Zealand,” he laughed.

In May, it was announced GreenLight had signed a memorandum of understanding with Australian pharmaceutical wholesaler Sigma Healthcare to roll out the Chemist Warehouse brand in the United Kingdom.

“It's a really exciting chapter for GreenLight,” O’Donoghue said.

He said the partnership was a natural fit, with Sigma bringing retail scale while GreenLight contributed decades of pharmacy and dispensary expertise.

But O’Donoghue wasn’t done there.

Through years of talking with patients, he realised many over-the-counter products were uncomfortable or embarrassing for consumers to use.

Behind the counter of his pharmacy, he began putting what he’d learnt into practice creating a medication for a common but rarely discussed condition - haemorrhoids.

“I just worked off the feedback of the customers so it took some years to perfect the formula and the way you make it,” he said.

It resulted in Asteroid, the first product from the Healthex brand, of which O’Donoghue is a co-founder alongside his wife Alice Delee.

“You didn't feel like you had to hide away, you could keep it and use it more often. If you use it more often, it's going to work better, if it works better, you're going to be feeling a lot better,” he explained.

Asteroid received its over-the-counter FDA listing in July 2025 and launched in the United States market in January.

The company plans to build an entire e-commerce shop of self-care health products for consumers looking for convenience and privacy.

The next phase is a major commercial launch backed by a new capital raise through investment platform PledgeMe, which launches on May 19.

“It's a very typical of the way we've done things and I like the idea that with platforms like PledgeMe, which give anybody a chance to buy some shares in what's going on.”

O’Donoghue’s mission is to give consumers choice.

“Every product, every part of it, even the service and how people want to hear the information, all comes from them, not us talking down to them.”