The medicine aisle is stuck in 1985.
Walk into any CVS, Walgreens, or Rite Aid and you’ll see the same brands your parents used. Advil. Tylenol. Pepto-Bismol. The packaging might have gotten sleeker, but open the bottle and read the ingredients - it’s the same formula from four decades ago.
Red dye 40. Artificial flavors. Ingredients you actively avoid in your food, your beauty products, even your cleaning supplies. But when it comes to medicine? We just accept it.
Here’s what’s wild: We’ve completely revolutionized every other wellness category. Organic food is mainstream. Clean beauty is a $22 billion industry. Natural supplements are everywhere. But OTC medicine? Unchanged.
Until now.
Meet Trelli Health
I sat down with Luke, founder of Trelli Health, on Unpackaged Goods to understand why someone finally asked the question nobody was asking: “Why does Advil need red dye?”
Spoiler: It doesn’t. It never did.
Trelli Health is doing for OTC medicine what we’ve been doing for everything else in the wellness space - making it clean. Better-for-you pain relief. Clean IBS medicine. The essentials you actually need, without the ingredients you’re actively trying to avoid.
Same efficacy. Cleaner ingredients. Finally.
Why This Matters
The wellness revolution has touched everything except the one category that literally goes into your body to make you feel better. Think about that irony for a second.
We read every label at Whole Foods. We scrutinize our face wash ingredients. We buy organic cleaning products. But we pop Advil without a second thought about what else is in there besides ibuprofen.
Luke’s thesis is simple: The active ingredients in OTC medicine work. They’ve been proven safe and effective. But why do they need to be surrounded by artificial dyes, flavors, and fillers that add nothing to efficacy?
They don’t. And Trelli proves it.
What “Clean” OTC Medicine Actually Means
This isn’t about rejecting modern medicine or going full granola. Trelli isn’t replacing ibuprofen with turmeric supplements. They’re using the same active ingredients that have been FDA-approved for decades.
The innovation is in everything else:
No artificial dyes
No artificial flavors
Transparent ingredient sourcing
Clean label formulation
Same efficacy as traditional brands
It’s the obvious next step in the clean living movement - except nobody was taking it until now.
The Category That Forgot to Innovate
In our conversation, Luke broke down why OTC medicine has been stuck in time:
Big pharma isn’t incentivized to change. When you own 80% of a category, why rock the boat? Advil works. People buy it. Shareholders are happy. Innovation is risk.
Retail pharmacies don’t push innovation. CVS and Walgreens make money whether you buy Advil or a clean alternative. They’re not out there scouting emerging brands.
Consumers didn’t know to ask for it. Until recently, “clean medicine” wasn’t even a concept most people considered. We’ve been conditioned to separate “medicine” from “wellness.”
But that’s changing. Fast.
The Bigger Trend
Trelli Health is part of something larger happening in CPG right now: the de-compartmentalization of wellness.
We used to think in silos:
Food is one thing
Beauty is another thing
Supplements are their own category
Medicine is completely separate
But today’s consumer doesn’t think that way. They want everything to align with their values. If you care about clean ingredients, you care about them everywhere - including your pain reliever.
This is the same consumer who:
Pays $8 for organic oat milk
Buys $45 clean beauty serums
Takes $30 probiotic supplements
But still grabs the same $7 Advil their parents used
The cognitive dissonance is finally catching up.
What This Means for CPG
If you’re a founder, investor, or operator in the CPG space, pay attention to this:
Every “solved” category is up for disruption if you can ask the right question.
The medicine aisle felt solved. Big brands. Established distribution. FDA regulations making innovation hard. Why bother?
But Luke asked: “Why does this need artificial dye?”
That one question unlocked an entire category opportunity.
What other “solved” categories are waiting for someone to ask the obvious question?
Listen to the Full Story
I go deep with Luke on Unpackaged Goods. We talk about:
How he identified the white space in OTC medicine
The regulatory hurdles of disrupting a pharma category
Why now is the moment for clean medicine
What it takes to challenge 40-year-old category norms
Where Trelli is headed next
The Medicine Aisle is Getting a Makeover
Forty years is a long time to go without innovation.
Trelli Health is proof that better-for-you doesn’t stop at the grocery store. The wellness revolution is coming for every category - even the ones that feel untouchable.
The medicine aisle is getting a makeover. And it’s about time.
What do you think? Do you read the labels on your OTC medicine? Reply and let me know - I read every response.
— Jonathan
P.S. For more brand discoveries like this, follow Deets Eats on Instagram and TikTok. New brands, founder stories, and the trends shaping CPG - every week.