Eli Lilly launches telehealth platform

LillyDirect will connect patients to Form Health, a telehealth provider, which has doctors who will work with patients to determine appropriate prescriptions. According to Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, neither Form Health nor its physicians will receive any financial compensation for prescribing Eli Lilly's drugs.

The service will offer delivery of Zepbound, Eli Lilly's weight-loss drug, as well as some Eli Lilly insulin products for people with diabetes and a migraine drug.

Evan Richardson, CEO of Form Health, said patients who are prescribed a weight-loss drug will meet with a doctor via telehealth on an ongoing basis, usually once a month. Doctors will independently work with patients and will be allowed to prescribe any FDA-approved weight-loss drug; however, Ricks noted that only those prescribed Zepbound will be eligible for Eli Lilly's at-home delivery service.

According to Ricks, LillyDirect will make it easier for patients to access drugs, as it removes the need to go to a doctor to get a prescription and a pharmacy to fill it.

"We've noticed that patients often struggle to manage their disease not because of the medicine itself but because the pathway to getting the medicine can be really challenging," he said. "Sometimes that's the pharmacy experience where products are out of stock or markups in pricing are confusing."

While a third-party fulfillment service will manage shipping, which will be free, patients will be "obtaining medicines directly from Lilly," the company said.

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According to Lee Brown, global sector lead for healthcare at the research firm Third Bridge, the move is "poised to upend the traditional go-to-market strategy within the drug area."

Potential customers of Lilly's drugs may enjoy the ability to circumvent their primary care physician and receive drugs directly from Lilly, Brown added. "You're eliminating a huge obstacle" for patients who don't want to go to their doctor, he said.

Evan Siegerman, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said the move was "ahead of the curve."

"In our view, the DTC (direct-to-consumer) model is ideal for obesity medications and drives uptake and lowers barriers to new patient starts for Zepbound," he said.

However, some experts expressed concerns about the move, raising questions about Eli Lilly's financial motivations.

"What fuels my skepticism is that the stakes are so high," said Arthur Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

While other companies, such as Weight Watchers, offer various weight-loss drugs through telemedicine, Eli Lilly is the first drugmaker to offer its own weight-loss drug, Caplan said.

"There's so much money that's going to move with these injectables," he said. "That creates at least the appearance of conflict of interest."

Saurabh Chandra, chief telehealth officer at the Center for Telehealth at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, also expressed concerns about a potential for "fragmentation of care," where some patients use LillyDirect to receive their weight-loss drug, but still see other providers in-person for other medications. This poses a potential risk of drug-to-drug interactions if providers aren't aware of what medications a patient is taking, Chandra said.

"Many of the patients do not know themselves what medications they are on," he said. "Many times they don't know what the side effects or what the adverse effects may be." (Bomey, Axios, 1/4; Loftus, Wall Street Journal, 1/4; Leo, Reuters, 1/4; Lovelace Jr. et al., NBC News, 1/4)