AstraZeneca is the latest Big Pharma to unveil a digital direct-to-consumer platform offering certain medicines at heavily reduced prices to cash-pay patients.
AstraZeneca Direct will go live Oct. 1, the drugmaker announced Friday, giving eligible patients a new way to order Farxiga, Airsupra and FluMist directly to their homes.
Farxiga, which is used to treat Type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and heart failure, will be available to cash-pay users of the platform for $181.59 per 30-day supply, an AstraZeneca spokesperson confirmed to Fierce. That represents a 70% discount off its list price of $600 and approximately matches the price that Medicare and Medicaid patients will pay starting in 2026.
Asthma med Airsupra, meanwhile, will be marked down to $249, about half off its regular list price of $489.
AstraZeneca doesn’t have an estimate of the number of Farxiga and Airsupra patients who will be eligible to use the DTC service, the spokesperson said, but added: “We have a range of existing U.S. patient support programs which help a significant number of eligible patients access their prescribed AstraZeneca medication at no or reduced cost. AstraZeneca Direct builds on this and is designed to address a genuine care gap for patients who have a prescription but cannot access Farxiga and Airsupra.”
Beyond those two therapeutics, eligible patients will also be able to order the influenza vaccine FluMist through AstraZeneca Direct. That addition comes a little over a month after the British pharma launched FluMist Home, a home delivery service set up solely for DTC orders of the self-administered nasal spray.
“We remain deeply committed to improving accessibility, affordability, and driving innovation in healthcare and we are excited to launch AstraZeneca Direct, which will give patients a transparent cash price with the convenience of home delivery,” Joris Silon, the company’s U.S. country president, said in Friday’s announcement. “The program complements our existing patient support services and is an important step forward in offering patients the medication they need, when and how they need it.”
AstraZeneca’s DTC platform reveal follows Bristol Myers Squibb’s own announcement on Thursday of the upcoming BMS Patient Connect platform, which will launch in January and begin by offering the psoriasis med Sotyktu at an 86% discount to eligible cash-pay patients.
Several other Big Pharmas have also recently rolled out DTC platforms with steep cash-pay discounts on some of their most popular drugs. That includes Novo Nordisk, which offers Ozempic and Wegovy for $499 per month via NovoCare Pharmacy, and Eli Lilly, whose LillyDirect marks down its competing GLP-1 med Zepbound to as low as $349 for certain dosages.
President Donald Trump has called for drugmakers to ramp up their DTC offerings, as part of his “Most Favored Nation” push to bring U.S. drug costs down to the lowest prices available in other developed countries.