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The distribution of prescription pharmaceuticals is beginning to take on some of the characteristics of online videos and music. Traditionally, access to prescriptions works as follows:
- Patient has a problem
- Patients sees his/her physician
- Physician diagnoses problem and writes prescription
- Patient takes prescription to traditional pharmacy or PBM-owned mail order company
- Pharmacy fills prescription with a drug manufactured by an FDA-regulated brand name or generic pharmaceutical company
- Patient takes medication
- If patient needs more medication after initial prescription and refills are exhausted, patient requests renewal from physician and repeats steps 4 to 7
But steps 2 through 7 are breaking down. Instead of seeing their physicians, increasing numbers of patients are either going directly online to order from pharmacies or are borrowing pills from friends and family who’ve received prescriptions. According to MedPage Today (Adults Commonly Share Prescription Drugs with Friends and Family) almost 30 percent of adults reported sharing prescription medications with others. Younger people are the most likely to share.
Meanwhile, shady web-based pharmacies that don’t require prescriptions and often sell counterfeit drugs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and impressive. MarketMonitor estimates that about 1000 shady pharmacy sites generate an average of 100,000 hits per day each and that such pharmacies spend about $25 million per year on search advertising. An acquaintance who works in the pharmaceutical security business told me that these pharmacies aren’t what they used to be. In fact they are adopting marketing and customer service best practices that are used by legitimate vendors. Rather than going for a quick score, the web-based companies are looking for repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals by providing products that work, offering easy-to-navigate websites and low prices.
