Struggling with plunging demand for its COVID products, Pfizer Inc. has a new plan to reach potential customers: Cutting out the middleman and selling drugs straight to patients. The company launched a website on Tuesday that allows users to schedule vaccine appointments or meet virtually with doctors who can prescribe its medicines for COVID, migraine and other conditions, which are then shipped to patients’ doorsteps.
Called PfizerForAll, the site allows Pfizer to offer its products to customers where they so often are — online, Googling their various health anxieties. “We’re all about delivering breakthroughs that change patients’ lives,” Aamir Malik, Pfizer’s U.S.
chief commercial officer, said in an interview, “but that’s only effective and impactful if you can get people the medicines they need when they need them.” In January, Eli Lilly & Co. launched its LillyDirect portal to sell popular obesity and diabetes treatments, marking the first time a major drug company hawked products straight to consumers.
While some doctors have questioned the model’s safety, the emergence of PfizerForAll suggests a potential Big Pharma arms race to sell directly to consumers, said Tim Mackey, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, who studies the pharmaceutical industry. The direct sales also circumvent players like pharmacy benefit managers that drugmakers say reduce their revenue and hurt patient access. Drug companies have historically spent for.