Direct-to-Consumer Telehealth & Pharma: Notes from Digital Pharma East
At this year’s Digital Pharma East conference, Wheel Health hosted an insightful workshop focused on the growing role of direct-to-consumer telehealth in the pharmaceutical industry. The session highlighted how companies are leveraging digital tools to bridge the gap between treatment and patient access, especially in the face of rising demand for convenient, on-demand care. Key discussions centered on how telehealth is reshaping consumer expectations and enabling life sciences companies to meet patients at critical moments in their healthcare journey.
Convenience matters for pharma consumers
With just a tap, the modern consumer can stream movies or music from their devices on demand. They can schedule takeout and order groceries from work, manage their finances from the road, or book their next vacation on their current vacation. The experience is seamless, and it’s shaped consumer expectations across all facets of life. Healthcare is no exception.
Telehealth found new life during the pandemic, primarily as an urgent care solution providing a lifeline for patients who needed immediate attention. These experiences carved out new expectations for convenience and accessibility across the healthcare industry. Consumers want more than just a quick visit. They expect their entire care journey to mirror the ease and immediacy of every other service in their life. In the span of a few years, consumers have come to expect the ability to schedule virtual appointments, access specialists, and even manage chronic conditions from home when possible.
The implications for pharmaceutical brands are clear: it’s no longer viable to rely on traditional commercialization strategies or expect patients to navigate prolonged, fragmented pathways to access the treatments they need. Consumer demand for personalized direct-to-consumer healthcare models is swelling. Life science companies are poised to deliver on this need — providing the seamless digital experiences consumers have come to expect in most other aspects of their lives.
Meeting consumers where they are and capturing them in the moments they’re most engaged with their care is now a necessity for pharma brands. And telehealth, once a novelty in life sciences, has become a critical first-step in adapting to this market shift.
This transformation in how drugs are launched and taken to market was a major point of interest at this year’s Digital Pharma East conference, and the primary topic of conversation during a fireside chat featuring Wheel CEO Michelle Davey, GoodRx’s Dorothy Gemmel, and Otsuka Precision Health’s Brian Schantz.
A changing healthcare landscape
Over the next ten years, Davey reminded the audience, the healthcare industry will be facing a shortage of nearly 90,000 physicians in America. The impacts of this scarcity of physicians are already felt by American healthcare consumers today. The average wait time to see a primary care provider is26 days. Wait times to see specialists are even longer – months, sometimes as many as six. As a result, many healthcare consumers are choosing to bypass care altogether, worsening outcomes and quality of life.
The chasm between consumer demand for convenience and the traditional care delivery model is vast. Consumers, no longer willing to wait, are beginning their care journeys digitally. According to research from Pew, 77% of adults begin their search for care online. There, they’re most likely to interact directly with the pharmaceutical brands manufacturing the treatments they require. This shift in patient behavior presents a massive opportunity for life sciences companies to rethink how they connect with consumers.
Challenges in prescription drug commercialization
Despite continued increases in spending on both R&D and advertising, pharmaceutical brands are straddling a widening gap between drug development and consumer access. Traditional commercialization strategies aren’t enough to bridge this gap, made evident by low prescription rates and the failure of many new product launches to gain traction.
Gemmel, in discussing GoodRx’s partnerships with pharmaceutical brands, echoed this sentiment. When consumers see brand-name drugs on the platform, she said, they’re often put off by the price. GoodRx has partnered with over 150 brands to lower prices through services like cash-pay options, making medications more accessible.
Life science companies are being forced to find innovative ways to connect with consumers, whether through pricing strategies or through direct-to-consumer (DTC) platforms that can engage consumers at critical points in their healthcare journey. Telehealth, Gemmel said, has become a critical channel for accessing not just urgent care, but specialty care for conditions like migraines, mental and behavioral health disorders, and MS – conditions where accessibility is often hindered by geography, mobility, or clinician shortages.
Embracing digital-first commercialization strategies
Davey’s discussion with Schantz shifted toward digital therapeutics and the role telehealth plays in enabling these innovations to go to market. Otsuka’s Rejoyn, a newly-launched prescription digital therapeutic for treating major depressive disorder, is a prime example of how digital tools are being integrated into the treatment process.
Otsuka Precision Health, Schantz explained, took a digital-first approach to commercializing Rejoyn. In doing so, the product was able to bypass the antiquated provider-driven model – bound by brick-and-mortar clinics and drawn-out wait times – in favor of one that prioritizes consumer convenience. Asking consumers to wait 26 days to see a provider for a Rejoyn prescription, he said, was more than likely to trigger devastating adoption setbacks. Instead, Rejoyn partners with Wheel to allow consumers to schedule a virtual consultation and receive a prescription quickly and with minimal friction.
Schantz’s insights reflect a broader trend in the consumerization of care, where consumers can create and dictate the terms of their own care journey. By offering near-immediate access to prescription digital therapeutics through telehealth, Otsuka Precision Health is positioning itself as an innovative and forward-thinking player in life sciences.
The future of telehealth for life sciences
Live polling during the fireside chat revealed the majority of pharma brands in attendance were considering or actively investing in telehealth strategies. It’s abundantly clear that telehealth is here to stay – and that its place in engaging consumers in their care journey is becoming more vital. While many life sciences companies have been testing the DTC telehealth waters with generics, the future lies in a more comprehensive pharma portfolio approach that will open the floodgates.
Consumers, especially those with chronic conditions, want experiences that support them over the course of their care journey, not just one-off urgent care and prescription consultation interactions. In the near future, Davey said, telehealth will be integrated into every aspect of the patient’s care journey, from education to treatment to ongoing support. Gemmell agreed, highlighting the importance of building partnerships to build seamless patient experiences.
“Pharmaceutical brands can’t do this alone,” she said. “They need partners to navigate the regulatory landscape and provide the necessary technology platforms.” Those partners, she said, will be critical to scale.
Building the future, together
Capturing consumers in the moment requires more than just a great product. It demands a seamless, convenient, and consumer-centric approach to engagement – one that Wheel is uniquely positioned to provide.
If life sciences companies want to thrive in the coming years, they’ll need to act now. Wheel is here to help.