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More pharma companies are considering taking a tip from Eli Lilly and offering their drugs directly to patients.
“I would be surprised, and, I would say, be derelict if we were not thinking about that,” said Eden Wells, Novartis’ chief insights and decision science officer, in a panel Thursday at the Financial Times’ US Pharma and Biotech Summit in partnership with Endpoints News.
Eli Lilly in January launched LillyDirect, a platform to connect patients with telehealth providers who could provide prescriptions for Lilly’s obesity, diabetes and migraine treatments and have them delivered straight to patients’ doorsteps. AstraZeneca and potentially Pfizer are following suit.
Wells said Eli Lilly’s direct-to-consumer bet is “brilliant” and “exciting” and has her thinking about what other types of therapies or diseases may be conducive to the approach.
But Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly’s rival in the GLP-1 medication race, hasn’t shown its cards. When asked on the sidelines of the summit if Novo Nordisk had a direct-to-consumer play in the works, Amy West, the drugmaker’s head of US digital transformation and innovation, played coy.
“I can’t tell you,” she said.
Drew Armstrong contributed reporting.