Days after President Donald Trump called on drugmakers to offer direct-to-consumer distribution of their products in the U.S. as part of his broader demand for lower drug prices, BlinkRx has unveiled a new program to help pharmas set up direct distribution channels.
Several pharmas already use BlinkRx’s online pharmacy services to fulfill prescriptions for certain medications at “the lowest network price,” per the company, which lists Bayer and Hikma among its existing partners.
With the new “Operation Access Now” program, BlinkRx claims drugmakers will be able to launch direct-to-patient sales of their products within 21 days. From there, pharmas can expand and tweak the resulting DTC platforms as needed, adding direct-to-business sales or adjusting offerings for cash-pay or insured patients.
BlinkRx CEO Geoffrey Chaiken said in the Aug. 7 launch announcement that the new initiative “is about removing every barrier between manufacturers and the patients who need their therapies.”
The company did not immediately respond to queries from Fierce Pharma Marketing on Tuesday morning about whether Operation Access Now was launched as a direct response to the president’s request for more DTC drug sales, nor whether BlinkRx board member Donald Trump Jr. had any hand in the development of the initiative.
In a statement to Bloomberg, however, the company said that it “did not speak to anyone at any level of government about the order,” adding that Operation Access Now “was not a board-level initiative, and we have not discussed the order or the press release with anyone on our board. To claim that Blink will benefit from this order is premature and almost certainly inaccurate.”
Trump Jr. joined the BlinkRx board earlier this year, after 1789 Capital—the venture firm that he had joined as a partner shortly before—led a $140 million series D financing in BlinkRx.
On July 31, Trump sent letters to 17 major pharma CEOs demanding that they enact his “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) order aimed at bringing U.S. drug costs down to the lowest prices available in other developed countries. Among the four actions he outlined in the letters was the call for pharmas to participate in DTC and direct-to-business sales “for high-volume, high-rebate prescription drugs so all Americans get the same low MFN prices that manufacturers already offer to third-party payers.”
In statements sent to Fierce Pharma at the time, many of the pharmas that received the letters expressed their commitments to improving access and affordability of their drugs, without providing specific details of how they plan to do so.
A handful of drugmakers have already begun dabbling in DTC sales. Last year, Eli Lilly and Pfizer launched their respective LillyDirect and PfizerForAll platforms, through which patients can purchase or fill prescriptions for the companies’ products and access virtual care for common ailments, though the latter telehealth partnerships have been flagged by senators as potentially wielding inappropriate influence over doctors’ prescribing habits.
This year, Novo Nordisk caught the DTC wave with the launch of its own NovoCare Pharmacy. Echoing the discounted sales of competitor Zepbound on the LillyDirect platform, self-paying patients can use NovoCare to order Wegovy for direct home shipping at a fee well below the GLP-1 blockbuster’s list price: $499 per month, down from $1,349.