For most of us, visiting the pharmacy is a perfunctory task: you need to pop in on your lunch break, grab your prescription or some deodorant, then head out. The trouble is, you often find yourself stuck behind fifteen people, with the person at the front of the queue seemingly living their very first day on earth.
Say goodbye to the misery. One step up from self-service has officially arrived, as Europe’s first fully autonomous parapharmacy has opened. That means there’s nobody there to greet you, zero cashiers and absolutely no queues. You literally just tap your payment card at the door to get in, grab your skincare or vitamins and walk right out while the tech handles the bill.
You can find the Black Mirror-esque pharmacy in Lisbon, specifically the Pharma&Go store in the Parque das Nações district. It boasts a system of overhead cameras, weight-tracking shelf sensors and artificial intelligence to monitor what you pick up, keeping the whole place running entirely on its own. Staff only ever pop in to restock the shelves.
What is a parapharmacy?
Think of it as the ultimate health, beauty and wellness playground, next door to a traditional chemist. Remember the French pharmacies that took over everyone’s TikTok feeds, where beauty lovers hunted down viral skincare gems and global makeup staples? It’s a bit like that, except this new Lisbon spot completely one-ups them by cutting out the staff entirely.
While these shops don’t sell prescription-only medicines, they are packed with everything else, like cult-classic skincare brands, baby formulas, oral hygiene gear and vitamin supplements.
How does an autonomous parapharmacy work?
It all starts at the shop door, where you present your payment method like a credit card, debit card or phone tap. Once the system validates your card, the door unlocks and you can step inside to look around.
However, there is one crucial detail to keep in mind if you are shopping with mates: once the door closes behind you, the card used at entry is digitally linked to everyone who walked in with you at that exact moment. As a result, any products your friends pick up will be charged to your card at checkout. Choose your shopping buddies wisely.
The beauty of the system is the absolute lack of traditional hassle. Better yet, it is designed to free up actual healthcare staff so they can focus on people, not scanning barcodes.
‘More and more, we are investing in solutions that allow us to keep pharmacists and the professionals we have focused on the clinical side, and to reduce the time they spend on purely commercial tasks,’ Catarina Dias, the veteran pharmacist running the Pharma&Go store, told euronews.
Mind your manners
If you’re thinking this sounds like a recipe for a tech disaster or a shoplifter’s paradise, the stats say otherwise. The shop actually opened late last year and has been booming ever since, with an AI error rate of under 2 percent.
In fact, according to Dias, the only real glitches are caused by overly polite humans. Because the overhead cameras track groups based on who walks through the door together, good old-fashioned manners will cost you. The store already logged an incident where a chivalrous local chap held the door open for a stranger walking in behind him. The AI assumed they were shopping together, and the poor guy accidentally footed the bill for her entire haul.
While the creators built this tech oasis to target smartphone-wielding millennials, Lisbon’s 80-year-old grannies have become its biggest fans. Turns out, avoiding a claustrophobic queue is a universal desire, no matter what year you were born.
Planning a trip this summer for yourself? Lisbon was just voted by locals as one of the top five most beautiful cities in the world for 2026.
Read our love letter to ‘grocery store tourism’ and why we love visiting local supermarkets on holiday.
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