A new dystopian era of pharmacies selling their own medicines

Do you want to fill your own prescription medication? No problem! Some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the United States are launching pilot websites that essentially sell their drugs directly to consumers.

This unprecedented move usheres in a new dystopian era: pharmaceutical companies as healthcare providers do not need pesky middleman doctors. This is what the pharmaceutical industry has always wanted: They have long viewed doctors as inconvenient barriers between the company and its customers. Instead of bribing and cajoling doctors into a “please prescribe the drug for us,” companies can now sell drugs directly to consumers who need them, regardless of whether those consumers need them, know anything about them, or will get them. benefit from them.

Lilly website, launched in Januarysells weight loss medications, diabetes medications, and migraine medications, but their main focus is on weight loss medications. On August 27, Pfizer launched its portal. PfizerForAllsell Paxlovid for Covid-19 and Zavpret (zavegepant), an intranasal drug for migraines; the site also promotes the use of vaccines.

One-stop pharmaceutical shopping sites encourage patients to click a button for an instant consultation with a prescriber, who will recommend a drug that can then be ordered through the site. This solves the patient’s problem of “going to the doctor to find someone who will write them what they know is the solution to their health problem,” said Lilly CEO Dave Ricks. Yahoo Finance.

It’s no coincidence that Pfizer, Lilly, Amgen and AbbVie they all sell anti-CGRP migraine medications on their direct-to-consumer portals; these drugs are not effective enough to be popular with real doctors. We wonder if telemedicine companies partnering with these pharmaceutical companies tell migraine patients that these drugs are hardly better than placebo; They less effective than cheaper generic triptans, and they take longer to work, leaving patients in pain longer. But at least they’re expensive: up to $125 per tablet.

Giving up your personal doctor is a good corporate move when the company sells a mediocre drug.

Medicines sold on these sites usually require marketing. Pfizer’s Paxlovid, for example, was once hailed as a breakthrough treatment for Covid, but sales of the drug fell sharply after it became clear that only a small group of high-risk people benefited from it. Recent studies show that Paxlovid does not improve symptoms more than placeboAnd one in five people experience a reboundbecoming contagious again (with or without symptoms) after treatment ends. And Paxlovid can dangerously increase levels of other medications a patient is taking. The question of whether someone with Covid should take this drug should involve a thoughtful discussion with a primary care doctor who knows the patient, not with some part-time worker in a white coat who has never examined before – or didn’t even see this patient.

On the same day that Pfizer announced its portal, Lilly announced that it was making its popular weight-loss drug Zepbound available in less expensive vials that require users to draw the drug into a syringe. The drug seems to be at a discount competition with sites who sell tirzepatide (the generic name for Lilly’s Zepbound).

Although it is considered to save patients money when their insurers do not cover weight-loss drugs, the available dosages are not cheap and may not be effective. LillyDirect will only sell the Zepbound 2.5 mg dose ( starting dose), as well as a monthly dose of 5 mg, which will cost $549, compared to about $1,000 for Zepbound pens, which also come in doses up to 15 mg.

Patients with migraines or Covid, or those who want to lose five pounds to look better in clothes, don’t have to self-prescribe medications, and that’s really what’s happening with these portals. Oh, sure, there’s some cooperating doctor involved from a supposedly independent provider of co-op doctors. But the thin camouflage of a white coat cannot hide the fact that working for a company tied to a pharmaceutical manufacturer and prescribing the same drug to almost everyone is not the practice of medicine. When nine out of 10 recipes written for a drug produced by a company whose website the client visited, this company simply sells drugs.

Adriana Few-Berman, MD, directs PharmedOut, a research and education project on inappropriate pharmaceutical marketing practices, at Georgetown University Medical Center, where she is also co-director of the Health and Public Interest graduate program. Judy Butler, MS, is a senior scientist at PharmedOut.