Big Pharma just started copying the buzzy startups that ship Viagra and hair-loss pills to your door, and it could be the start of a 'mega-trend'
- The pharmaceutical company Bausch Health is now selling prescription drugs online to treat conditions like acne, wrinkles, and eczema.
- The $9 billion drugmaker is following a strategy similar to buzzy startups like Roman and Hims, which use online doctor visits to prescribe Viagra and hair-loss pills online.
- "I believe that we are ahead of a mega-trend here," Bill Humphries, president of Bausch's Ortho Dermatologics business, told Business Insider.
- Dermatology.com is tapping the healthcare technology startup RxDefine to facilitate virtual visits with medical professionals.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Healthcare startups like Roman and Hims have found success in selling prescription drugs online that ship straight to your door for conditions like erectile dysfunction and hair loss.
They've attracted hundreds of millions in investments and pioneered a new way for patients to see doctors and get care.
Now, Big Pharma is joining in.
Meet Dermatology.com, a website run by Bausch Health, formerly known as Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Through the website, patients can meet with a doctor, get a prescription, and have it sent to a pharmacy or shipped straight to their homes.
Bausch Health began selling prescription medications for acne, wrinkles, and eczema through Dermatology.com in March 2019, but at that time, patients needed a prescription from an outside doctor to order treatments.
This month, the company added the ability for patients to get a prescription through a virtual doctor visit. The company said it was responding to patient demand, and that it's helping address the difficulty some patients have in getting in to see a dermatologist.
"I believe we are ahead of a mega-trend here," Bill Humphries, the president of Bausch's Ortho Dermatologics business, told Business Insider.
An online doctor visit and a shopping experience that feels like Amazon
Similar to the startups bringing birth control or hair loss medications directly to consumers, Bausch's website combines an online doctor's visit with a shopping experience that feels something like Amazon.
For the medical consultation, patients upload pictures, and then a medical professional reviews the photos and decides whether a patient needs a prescription. That process is facilitated by RxDefine, a health-tech startup that runs the software platform and also provides the dermatologist for the medical consultation.
After the consultation, the dematologist can either write a prescription or recommend an in-person doctor visit. That happens typically within 24 hours, Bausch said.
The medical professionals that work with RxDefine ultimately decide whether the patient needs a particular medication and can either prescribe the branded product, a competitor, or nothing.
"Everything is based around conditions," RxDefine cofounder Chase Feiger told Business Insider.
The Santa Monica, California-based startup got its start in February 2019, and has raised $11.7 million, according to PitchBook. Feiger declined to comment on the amount of funding raised, but noted the company has raised money from top Silicon Valley investors.
Humphries described Bausch's relationship with RxDefine as at "arms length," where the drugmaker is not receiving any patient data.
Customers pay for the prescriptions themselves rather than using insurance, and can get it shipped or pick it up at a pharmacy.
Online pharmacy Truepill is also involved in the initiative, and handles the home shipping.
Bausch is competing directly with the online startups
"We're working with pretty much everyone across the pharmacy industry," Truepill cofounder and CEO Umar Afridi told Business Insider. "Drug manufacturers happen to be a big area where we're seeing a lot of interest."
While startups like Ro, the healthcare company behind Roman, or Hims often sell generic drugs, Bausch is selling its own branded versions on its site. That includes Retin-A, or tretinoin, a treatment for acne that sites like Hers and Curology also sell, putting Dermatology.com in direct competition with the startups.
Ro, for its part, has teamed up with the biotech biotech company Gelesis to offer a weight management product on its site.
Initially, Bausch launched the site as a way to give customers a way of purchasing their treatments directly. Humphries said a lot of patients were dealing with insurance coverage issues or high prices at the pharmacy counter.
"These challenges stopped patients from getting their products, or if they did eventually get their products, it led to a price that was a really high price," Humphries said.
Growing Bausch's dermatology business
The website is a part of Bausch's broader approach to marketing the drugs in its dermatology portfolio.
There are also 31 Bausch sales representatives calling on dermatologists to inform them about Dermatology.com, and Humphries said the plan is to promote the site through advertising.
The way Feiger sees it, it's the digital equivalent of the "talk to your doctor" mandate ads usually send patients out with. Instead of relying on patients to go in-person for a doctor's vist, now there's an online place to connect patients with doctors.
Bausch, which was then known as Valeant, ran into trouble with its approach to growing volume for some of its dermatology products. Its relationship with the pharmacy Philidor ultimately led to the CEO of the pharmacy and a Valeant employee being found guilty in a kickback scheme.
Humphries said that throughout building Dermatology.com, Bausch made an effort to make sure it was proceeding in a legally compliant way.
"There's a strong spirit of governance and transparency," he said.
In an earnings call on Wednesday, Bausch CEO Joseph Papa touted the website to Wall Street. He said that so far there are 15 products available, with plans to add more.
"We believe that Dermatology.com has the potential to meet patient needs and help grow our dermatology business," Papa said.
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