F111 The full circle in telemedicine - adding home delivery of medications and at-home diagnostics ( Sid Viswanathan, Truepill)
There are a number of players that are trying to disrupt the pharmacy market. Companies such as GoodRx, RxSaver and now Amazon Pharmacy are starting to bring pricing transparency in the field. The Amazon Prime prescription savings benefit can save members up to 80% off generic and 40% off brand name medications when paying without insurance. Truepill is offering healthcare players a fast way to digital transformation.
There is a lot of money in the pharmaceuticals space. According to 2019 predictions by IQVIA Institute, the global pharmaceutical market will exceed $1.5 trillion by 2023. Spending on medicines in the U.S. is expected to reach over $600 billion on an invoice basis in 2023. The global online pharmacy market size is likely to cross revenues of over $131 billion by 2025, as predicted by Research and Markets. The time for digitalization of pharmacy has arrived.
One of the players helping manufacturers, insurance providers, and health brands keep up with digital trends is Truepill. Four years ago the company started offering consumer brands a range od digital services, including pharmacy fulfillment that delivers medication to patients’ homes.
The shift to the modern digital healthcare experience
Sid Vishwanathan.
“Up until 2016 the most common telehealth model in the industry was for you to go online to consult with a physician. If that physician wrote a prescription you had to go pick it up. So when you think about that and take a step back, you have this magical experience on your mobile device sitting in the comfort of your own home. But yet to complete that last mile, you now have to get out of your couch to get in your car, you have to drive into a retail pharmacy, you have to wait in line to pick it up, and then repeat that every 30 days. And then when we looked at that, we said, clearly the model is going to shift towards a complete end to end solution,” says the Co-Founder and President of Truepill Sid Viswantathan.
The Amazon Pharmacy set the wheels of digitalization in motion
Today, Truepill is a B2B company providing their customers with a way to provide their customers with the best possible experience. While Truepill started of as a partner for direct to consumer brands, its digital health platform today combines telehealth, diagnostics, and pharmacy. “We've gone from just being a pharmacy focus to now a full platform that combines pharmacy, telehealth, as well as diagnostics and all the web building tools and all the infrastructure to make you successful as a consumer health brand, or healthcare provider,” says Vishwanathan.
He believes the entrance of Amazon in the Pharmacy space is a positive sign of the industry maturing. “Amazon Pharmacy shows that macro trend are being driven by the consumer interest. Consumers are dictating what types of experiences they want to shop for in healthcare - how they want to shop for their medications, both insurance as well as cash products. We've always positioned Truepill as not being direct to consumer brand that's trying to compete with Amazon directly. Instead, we're the infrastructure player that's trying to help the incumbents, the largest health plans in the country, the largest drug manufacturers, start to think about how to consumerize their experiences to stay relevant. So while Amazon will continue to make a dent in the industry, our job as a platform is to help some of the largest health care organizations in the country figure out how do they consumerize their experience, because we're going through that shift in our own industry where consumerization is happening.”
As he says, the consumerization shift made it imperative for any company working in healthcare to seriously reconsider what a good customer experience is. “The traditional mindset of healthcare has always been, well, how do we think about reinventing an experience over the next two years or three years. And the reality is that consumer expectations change in three months. So if you don't begin to understand how to prototype, how to build how to test ideas and concepts, in a rapid three-month fashion, or a rapid startup like fashion, you will always fall behind to where the consumer shift is going and where the consumers interest is going,” says Vishwanathan.
Tune in for the full discussion.
Key points:
- How is digitalization changing the pharmacy industry,
- The rise of modern digital healthcare,
- What healthcare companies need to know about building digital experience for their customers.
Some questions addressed:
Prior to starting Truepill you worked for Linkedin. Before continuing the discussion about Truepill I wonder how you see the way you two connected? Online presence and networking went on a whole new level this year? Can you offer a bit of reflection on the changing landscape of how we connect and collaborate, do business, etc?
Going digital today is a necessity for survival. Where do you see healthcare providers struggle most? What’s your advice to healthcare companies about building digital experience for their customers? How do you recommend healthcare companies to expand their digital health offerings and improve the consumer experience? What elements do you recommend healthcare companies follow when building digital health experiences?
In November Amazon announced the Amazon Pharmacy. Do you see Amazon Pharmacy as a threat? How do you differ?
In November Amazon announced the Amazon Pharmacy. Do you see Amazon Pharmacy as a threat? How do you differ?
One of the challenges in telemedicine is that sometimes online visits don’t solve the need for an in-person visit, because of the lack of diagnostics. You are addressing that issue by developing at-home testing. You are working with lab testing providers to offer hundreds of at-home tests, first with tests to manage chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, chronic kidney disease. How can healthcare companies use Truepill's testing and diagnostics? How broad is your offering?
Truepill is also present in the UK. How do you compare the two markets? UK having a more regulated medication pricing and a public system…?