Collaboration, Not Competition: Insights from the Pharmacy Innovation Assembly

This year’s Pharmacy Innovation Assembly opened with a message that felt both timely and deeply needed. As the room filled with pharmacy owners and health leaders, Dr Angela Kwong – General Practitioner and Founder of Enlighten Me – invited everyone to look beyond professional divides and refocus on the shared purpose that underpins healthcare.

A Conversation Bigger Than Prescriptions

Stepping onto the stage, Dr Angela addressed what many in the room had been feeling.

“The obesity crisis is here,” she told the audience. “And it shouldn’t be a competition between professions about who’s prescribing. There are plenty of patients who need help. Our focus should be on helping patients feel welcome, understood, and confident that their care team is working together.”

Her words reframed the long-standing elephant in the room – the growing conversation around increased access to prescribing – and invited the audience to shift the narrative from tension to teamwork.

Rather than focusing solely on GLP-1 demand or prescribing pathways, she centred the discussion on what happens before and after a script is written. The real work, she reminded the room, lies in supporting a patient’s journey with empathy, clarity, and continuity of care.

The Barriers Patients Face – and Why Collaboration Matters

Dr Angela highlighted the lived realities that patients often navigate long before they arrive at a GP clinic or a dispensary:

• The courage to acknowledge that previous attempts at weight loss haven’t worked.
• The vulnerability of seeking help in a world where weight stigma still lingers.
• The uncertainty of navigating side effects.
• The discomfort patients experience when they sense tension between the very professionals meant to support them.

Pharmacists, she emphasised, are often the first to hear these concerns. Like GPs, they are on the frontline – listening, guiding and noticing early signs when someone isn’t coping.

And it is within this shared frontline, not in divided silos, that the greatest opportunity for truly patient-centred care exists.

A Message That Resonated Across the Room

The response was immediate and warm. Attendees appreciated the honesty and welcomed the call for connection over competition.

Dr Angela’s vision was clear: an integrated model of care where pharmacists are recognised as essential members of the multidisciplinary team, working alongside GPs, dietitians, exercise physiologists and other allied health professionals.

In a time of rapid change, collaboration isn’t simply beneficial – it’s essential. The future of safe, effective, stigma-free weight management depends on professions working together, not apart.

Moving Forward, Together

At Enlighten Me, we have always believed that weight management is not the responsibility of any single profession. It takes a community of clinicians – listening, educating and supporting patients in a cohesive way.

The Pharmacy Innovation Assembly was a timely reminder that this collaborative spirit is not only possible, but already growing.

We are grateful to every pharmacist, owner, clinician and health leader who contributed to the conversation. Together, we can help patients feel truly supported – welcomed without judgement and confident that their care team stands united.