Lisbon’s First Fully Autonomous Parapharmacy Opens

In November 2025, a 90-square-metre parapharmacy opened in the Parque das Nações district of Lisbon, operating without staff or checkout tills. Customers validate entry with a credit or debit card; the card is linked to everyone inside until they exit, at which point all taken items are automatically charged. The shop sells over-the-counter health and personal-care products but excludes prescription medicines.

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The shop relies on hundreds of cameras and sensors combined with artificial-intelligence software to track customers and items in real time. The system’s margin of error is reported as “below 2 %,” with most mistakes attributed to human behaviour—such as two people sharing a card when one holds the door for another. Continuous software refinements are driven by each customer interaction.

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Management notes a steady month-over-month increase in visitors, with “more customers than the month before” and growing acceptance across age groups. While the location was chosen to attract younger shoppers with higher spending power, patrons as old as 70-80 have been reported to use the service comfortably, citing the “easy pedestrian access, with no steps and no queues.”

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Pharmacist Catarina Dias, who runs Pharma&Go and oversees the project, emphasizes that the model frees pharmacists to focus on clinical duties. She also expressed disappointment that the venture’s application for funding under the Artificial Intelligence and Innovation strand of Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) was not deemed sufficiently innovative.

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• “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, Pharmacist

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• “The door opens, they walk into the shop, pick up the product they want to buy and leave. Automatically, once they have left, the products they take with them are charged to the card they used to validate entry. There are no tills, no queues, no friction, no complications,” — Catarina Dias, Pharmacist

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• “I think people are starting to lose their fear of this new technological solution," says Catarina Dias.” — Catarina Dias, Pharmacist

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• “Because using the shop really is very simple. You don’t need to understand the technology to use it. You just tap your card, come in, pick up your products and leave. And very often, the fact that we have easy pedestrian access, with no steps and no queues, means that even this more senior public has taken to it in a big way.” — Catarina Dias, Pharmacist

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• “We applied for funding under an Artificial Intelligence and Innovation strand of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR). And I would say it was very disappointing for us that our project was not considered sufficiently innovative,” — Catarina Dias, Pharmacist

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