Kripps Pharmacy, a family owned business, is known for its large selection of natural health products and compounded medications. For over 65 years, Kripps Pharmacy has served the Vancouver community in discovering new ways of enriching the quality of life. Our mission is to help customers “claim individual control of their health.”
Our pharmaceutical and nutraceutical knowledge and working in health consultation has enabled us to formulate a wide variety of health products for the maintenance of good health and to support the management of common adverse health problems. Our health products are guaranteed for quality, purity and potency. We continue to be pioneers of natural health innovation and promotion that are scientifically proven for their recommended usage.
Furthermore, Dr. Thorpe, Owner/Manager of Kripps Pharmacy is one of the first Canadian pharmacists to specialize in compounding natural hormonal therapies. We were also early advocates of enteric encapsulation, trans-dermal and hypoallergenic skin care products and delivering Vitamin C and D in powdered and cream formats. Dr. Thorpe recognized worldwide as an expert and lecturer in natural health medicine.
We take pride in keeping our business within the family over the last 5 decades.
1940-1950: The Founder’s Beginnings
In the fall of 1947 Stephen Kripps, newly married, just graduated from the University of Saskatchewan Pharmacy program, and recently arrived in Vancouver, purchased the Owl Drug Store pharmacy at 994 Granville Street – a location that 60 years later has become a defacto ‘heritage site’. At the time, there were many neighborhood drugstores, for example at Davie and Granville and Sithe and Granville, but only Kripps Pharmacy survived the transition to the 21st century’s giant office towers and complex residential infill projects that have been completed throughout the downtown core.
1950-1970: Early Initiatives & Successes
With the late Dr. McKeon, a veterinarian who worked from the store serving the thoroughbred racing community at Lansdowne Park, Stephen Kripps used his expertise as a laboratory technician to assist with veterinary supplies and saw the opportunity to expand the laboratory services to include products for milk farms, dog breeders, and thoroughbred horses. Agnes Kripps assisted in all aspects of store operations as well as sewing the racetrack “coolers” blankets for the thoroughbreds, individually colored to match the stables’ colors. In the early 1960’s Stephen Kripps initiated thesale to the public of Vitamin C powder in 1lb. containers, much to the consternation of the College of Physicians and the College of Pharmacists. With that success confirming the interest of its customers, Kripps Pharmacy then evolved into the leading Vancouver proponent and supplier of holisticproducts related to Orthomolecular Therapy, now an established branch of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Stephen Kripps worked locally in conjunction with Dr. Ross McLean and Dr. Abram Hoffer, whose research on niacin and ascorbic acid was allied with Nobelist Professor LinusPauling’s vitamin C research. This work was eventually published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (USA), which gained it worldwide attention and stimulated ongoing scientific research into nutrition, health and holistic medicine. In the late 1970’s Stephen Kripps retired but he remains vigorous and continues to work as a consultant to pharmacy customers, while also writing books on current health issues, such as Thyroid Awareness and Nutrition Alert.
1950-1980 The Original Location & District
The location at 994 Granville Street proved to be a window on the history of downtown Vancouver architectural trends, evolving civic policies, and public fashions. When the newly married Kripps couple arrived, the Greek and Italian communities dominated the southerly area on the downtown side of the bridge, and through the 1950’s the neighborhood was friendly to extended working families, which could always find grandparents to baby-sit children during daytime hours. At this location Granville Street has been alternatively transformed into a lengthy pedestrian mall and then back to a partial / full automobile thoroughfare. The pharmacy survived the ‘Great Flood’ when the City of Vancouver Engineers, preparing the pedestrian mall, accidentally ruptured a water main that resulted in swamping this section of the downtown corridor. By the 1970’s Granville Street had become the city’s ‘Theatre Row’, hosting one of North America’s most flamboyant entertainment districts, with neon signs renowned for their size and creativity.
1980- 2007 Into the Modern Era Under Dr. Thorpe
Kripps Pharmacy has remained a family business under Dr. Edward Thorpe – married to the multi-talented and indefatigable Bonnie Kripps – specializing in custom solutions to customers’ particular needs, both pharmaceutical and nutritional. Because of his scientific training at the Ph.D. level (UBC doctorate, Medicinal Organic Chemistry, plus M.Sc., B.Sc.Pharm, B.Sc.) Dr. Thorpe appreciates the importance of remaining current with significant research trends and medical developments. Dr. Thorpe was the first Canadian pharmacist to initiate bioidentical hormonal replacement therapy. Collaborating with Dr. Jonathon Wright, Kripps Pharmacy became the only source to be approved by Dr. Wright’s office for totally hypoallergenic, hyposensitizing hormonal replacement therapy products.
2007 – The Future: New Location, New Products, Traditional Service
Vancouver has grown-up during the period of Kripps Pharmacy’s 60 years residence downtown. The city is now famous, internationalized, and the downtown rents reflect high-margin, high-priced franchise retailers and financial services. To serve its long-standing clients with sensible pricing. Kripps is moving to its new location, 5413 West Boulevard, an amiable, relaxed neighborhood, where it continues to promote and popularize natural, holistic-health nutritional supplements. The purpose, as always, carried forward from the founder Stephen Kripps, is to enable customers to claim individual control of their health. The friendly staff at Kripps Pharmacy is a team of fully knowledgeable compounding pharmacists, herbalists and chemists.
They are dedicated to serving customers’ unique needs and discovering new ways to enrich the quality of their health. As part of its move, Kripps Pharmacy has expanded the same effective ‘internal’ nutritional approach to health care to ‘external’, skin-health care – transmitted from the outside to the inside. Their motto “Skin Care IS Health Care” has caught the imagination of the public. New scientific advances in trans-dermal chemistry are permitting the development of increasingly effective skin lotions, creams, gels, and sprays. Kripps is a leader in hypoallergenic cosmetics. Kripps Pharmacy was one of the first pharmacies to supply locally, and by worldwide mail order, a range of vitamins, minerals and herbals that are sugar, starch and yeast free. Its natural products are guaranteed to be of the highest quality, purity and potency.
Kripps Pharmacy specializes in customized prescriptions free of fillers, dyes, diluents and additives, compounded in individualized dosages satisfying the special requirements of the individual customer. Such tailored services and products have subsequently included extensive consulting to Kripps Pharmacy clientele on pharmacological and nutritional subjects, and innovative formulations such as its ‘EC Fishol’.