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Pfizer aims to recapture some of the goodwill it gained from rolling out its best-selling Covid-19 vaccine three years ago by putting the “Pfizer for All” brand on a direct-to-consumer medicines platform.
The New York-based drugmaker filed a trademark application in mid-April for a website and app providing medical information as well as mail-order pharmacy and telehealth services to US patients under the brand “Pfizer for All”, according to a US Patent and Trademark Office filing.
The early-stage plans are the latest effort by a pharmaceutical company to circumvent industry middlemen and sell drugs directly to US patients. Earlier this year, weight loss drugmaker Eli Lilly launched its LillyDirect platform in an industry first.
Pfizer’s direct-to-consumer platform is pitched as a healthcare equity initiative through which the drugmaker that helped end the Covid-19 crisis promises to demystify the complex web of physicians, pharmacies and insurers through which US patients access their medicines, according to two people consulted on the plans.
Pfizer is “trying to leverage some of that brand equity that they got the world spinning again”, said Markus Saba, a marketing professor at the University of North Carolina Center for the Business of Health, who was previously a communications executive at Eli Lilly.
“Lilly broke the mould with LillyDirect and everyone is following with their own unique pitch.”
Pfizer’s net favourability score peaked at 30.6 on a brand index in April 2021 as it benefited from goodwill from the vaccine rollout after averaging less than 10 the year before the pandemic, according to YouGov market research. Its favourability score currently sits at 23.3, having sunk as low as 10.7 in May last year.
Shares in Pfizer have lost more than half of their value from their high during the pandemic. The drugmaker has cut projections for vaccine sales and investors have been unconvinced about its path to growth. Pfizer was valued at $158bn as of market close on Friday.
“There’s both positive and negative sentiment towards pharmaceutical companies in relation to vaccine access and vaccine hesitancy but I think it probably nets out as positive,” said Timothy Mackey, professor of global health at University of California San Diego.
“Pfizer is trying to go for a softer position that they are not just a pharmaceutical manufacturer, they are a partner with you on your disease journey.”
The Financial Times reported last week that Pfizer was planning to offer its Covid antiviral Paxlovid, its Covid and flu diagnostic kit Lucira and certain migraine medications on the platform later this year, according to two people familiar with the proposal.
The platform will offer a “downloadable mobile application for providing medical information” as well as “mail order pharmacy services” and “diagnostic test kits . . . for use in disease screening and detection”, according to the trademark application, which was lodged on April 16.
“With a fairly small investment and minimal risk, Pfizer can open up this channel and then all of a sudden it has a way to interact with patients directly,” said Timothy Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“But it also now has a new path to market and that gives them some more leverage when it comes to negotiating with payers.”
Pfizer declined to comment further on the plans. The drugmaker previously told the Financial Times that it had “a history of and an ongoing commitment to” helping patients receive timely medical information.
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