Drugmakers Tap Telehealth to Sell Directly to Patients

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to telehealth platforms for direct-to-consumer drug sales.

That’s according to a report Monday (Aug. 4) from Axios, which notes that this effort is happening as President Donald Trump is urging more companies to adopt the practice.

Trump wrote last week to the chief executives of 17 pharmacy companies, giving them 60 days to reduce their prices for U.S. consumers, and to provide direct-to-consumer or direct-to-business drug purchasing options on some products.

Some major drugmakers have already committed to these models and are exploring their use, in part because of the skyrocketing popularity of GLP-1 drugs, which are expensive and in many cases not covered by insurance.

Early last year, Eli Lilly became the first pharmaceutical company to introduce a direct-to-consumer (D2C) healthcare platform — called LillyDirect — for its diabetes, obesity, migraine and select other medications.

Pfizer and Novo Nordisk have since rolled out their own direct sales models, the Axios report added, while the CEO of Roche said last month that the company is mulling a similar offering for U.S. patients.

Lilly’s and Pfizer’s D2C models begin with virtual visits with independent practitioners working with telehealth platforms, who can — but are not required to — prescribe drugs in each company’s program.

Patients can then order their medicine right from the company, and in many cases get those drugs delivered to their homes.

The Axios report points out that this model has its critics. Among them is Adam Brown, a physician and health care strategist, who wrote in an op-ed last year that D2C models run the risk of convincing patients to purchase drugs they don’t actually need.

And pharmacy benefit managers, who act as go-betweens for health plans and drugmakers, say they can help consumers save more.

These efforts are happening at a time when telehealth “has cemented itself as a standard delivery channel in U.S. healthcare, especially among young generations,” as PYMNTS wrote last month.

But while care has gone digital, payment systems have not. For providers, “this growing disconnect between virtual care delivery and outdated billing workflows isn’t just an operational oversight; it’s increasingly becoming a liability,” the report added.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that nearly 30% of Generation Z and millennials used telehealth for their most recent healthcare encounter, indicating comfort with digital-first care among young Americans.

However, 68% of Gen Z patients said they saw moderate to severe friction when paying for that care. These challenges can range from unclear insurance information and fragmented billing platforms to limited digital payment options.