Lilly launches direct-to-consumer service – LillyDirect

Eli Lilly and Company launched LillyDirect, a new digital healthcare experience for patients in the U.S. living with obesity, migraine, and diabetes.

The service offers disease management resources — including access to independent healthcare providers, tailored support, and direct home delivery of select Lilly medicines through third-party pharmacy dispensing services.

Highlights

For patients living with obesity, migraine and diabetes, LillyDirect offers:

• LillyDirect Pharmacy Solutions, a digital pharmacy for select Lilly medicines powered by third-party online pharmacy fulfillment services. LillyDirect Pharmacy Solutions gives patients a simple option to get consistent access to Lilly medicines they have been prescribed with the added convenience of home delivery. By obtaining medicines directly from Lilly, patients can easily access Lilly's affordability solutions and savings card opportunities are automatically applied for patients who qualify. Medicines fulfilled by pharmacy service providers through LillyDirect Pharmacy Solutions ship free of charge.
• Disease state and healthcare educational information to help empower and support patients on their care journeys.
• Access to independent telehealth providers that could complement a patient's current primary care team or be an alternative to in-person care for certain conditions.
• An independent search tool that allows a patient to find healthcare professionals near them if they prefer in-person care.

On the record

"A complex U.S. healthcare system adds to the burdens patients face when managing a chronic disease. With LillyDirect, our goal is to relieve some of those burdens by simplifying the patient experience to help improve outcomes," said David A. Ricks, Lilly's chair and CEO. "LillyDirect offers more choices in how and where people access healthcare, including a convenient home delivery option to fill Lilly medicines they have been prescribed."

"We know that people have come to depend on the efficiency and convenience of digital solutions to meet a variety of their everyday needs - healthcare being one of them," added Frank Cunningham, group vice president, global value and access at Lilly. "We launched LillyDirect with the hope that it will offer patients an innovative end-to-end experience to manage their health and access their medicines, so they can get back to living their lives."

What's next?

Eli Lilly says it will continue to update and expand LillyDirect to improve the customer experience. Future updates may include new products, partners, and services, such as programs designed to help patients adhere to their medicines. And, who knows, perhaps they will launch something similar in other places around the world.

The context

Eli Lilly's move comes on the heels of weight loss companies WW and Noom launching their own telehealth prescribing options.

In that sense, LillyDirect offers patients access to the popular weight loss medication Zepbound, along with certain kinds of insulin and Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody for migraine, Emgality.

Also, to make its new offering possible, Eli Lilly also partnered with telehealth providers 9amHealth, Forum and Cove, though it added that it has no financial relationships with them — and their clinicians are free to prescribe any medications.