To our valued community,

This is no doubt the hardest announcement we’ve had to make in the history of Willby’s and our hearts are heavy as we share this news with you. Yesterday we received formal correspondence from the Victorian Pharmacy Authority (VPA) that a condition has been imposed on our pharmacy, with immediate effect, that prevents us from compounding any colic mixes until stringent requirements are met to the satisfaction of the VPA and formulas are changed. This means that we are not able to fulfil any more orders for colic mixes. The effect of the condition is that with great regret, we will need to close Willby’s for the foreseeable future.

We can imagine you’ll be asking the question ‘why’ and we want to do our best to answer that. Over the past two years, we have been corresponding with the VPA as we’ve sought to keep our Pharmacy in operation following our founder, Greg Goldby, being diagnosed with MND and his subsequent passing in late 2022. The VPA gave us a deadline to find a proprietor for the business and unfortunately, we weren’t able to meet this timeline which led to our temporary closure last year as we sought to find a suitable solution to keep our Pharmacy a family business. Additionally, over recent months, there has been growing media coverage and online discussion around the negative side effects of colic solutions that contain belladonna tincture. It is our understanding that these factors have contributed to the VPA’s ruling that our Pharmacy must not compound or supply any compounded medicines intended for the treatment of colic.

This comes as a shock and we are deeply saddened that we are unable to offer care for those of you who are desperately in need. We realise what this means for every parent and baby that is currently a customer of ours who is now left without a solution, and we are sincerely sorry for letting you down. Our founder Greg’s vision was to provide relief for babies experiencing colic, to help families be families, and it was our hope to continue on this legacy through this family business. Despite all of this, we continue to stand by our philosophy of Willbys and the work we do. Over the past three decades, it’s been our honour to meet you, support you and help guide you through the challenging season that parents of babies with colic face. We want to thank you for trusting and supporting Willby’s along the journey — it has meant so much to us, and this beautiful community of families serves as a light to us now, just as it has through the other challenging times in our journey. Please know that if you’re a current customer, our team will continue to be taking calls over the next week to provide the counselling and support which we make available to our customers, and any unfulfilled orders will be refunded in the coming days.

This may be the end for now, however with so many families struggling without a solution, we feel compelled to find a new way to care for families through the colic journey. We are open to every opportunity and welcome your ideas and feedback. The wellbeing of our families come first and we will continue to champion better care for those who desperately need it.

Thank you again,

The Willby’s team and the Goldby family