Eli Lilly has created a website to make it easier for patients to access medicines including its hot obesity drug Zepbound. The website, LillyDirect, combines telehealth and pharmacy services to provide access to Lilly’s portfolio of diabetes, migraine and obesity medicines.
Companies including the weight loss program providers Noom and WeightWatchers have begun offering telehealth services to help people access Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy. Drugmakers have kept in their lane, though, developing and manufacturing medicines without getting into the business of connecting patients to physicians and delivering products to their homes.
LillyDirect marks a shift in strategy, at least for Lilly. The website features sections to help people access healthcare, either remotely or in person, and details of how to send prescriptions to LillyDirect Pharmacy Solutions to get home deliveries of Lilly drugs.
Lilly CEO David Ricks set out the thinking behind LillyDirect in a statement, framing the site as a response to a complex U.S. healthcare system that “adds to the burdens patients face when managing a chronic disease” and outlining how the new offering may help.
“With LillyDirect, our goal is to relieve some of those burdens by simplifying the patient experience to help improve outcomes. LillyDirect offers more choices in how and where people access healthcare, including a convenient home delivery option to fill Lilly medicines they have been prescribed,” Ricks said.
Lilly has partnered with pharmacies and telehealth providers to deliver the services. Users who want to get telehealth for diabetes, migraine or obesity are respectively directed to 9amHealth, Cove and Form. Eversana and Truepill are already offering pharmacy services via LillyDirect and the drugmaker plans to add more service providers down the line.
According to Lilly, the pharmacy service “gives patients a simple option to get consistent access to Lilly medicines they have been prescribed with the added convenience of home delivery” and ensures that its “affordability solutions and savings card opportunities” are automatically applied to patients who qualify. Shipping is free.
The addition of more pharmacies is one of several items on Lilly’s to-do list. In the future, Lilly may add “new products, partners and services, such as programs designed to help patients with adherence to their medicines.”