Big Pharma just pulled the plug on its first attempt to copy the buzzy startups that ship Viagra and hair-loss pills to your door

Lydia Ramsey,Andrew Dunn

Mar 12, 2020, 00:41 IST

Big Pharma just pulled the plug on its first attempt to copy the buzzy startups that ship Viagra and hair-loss pills to your door

Dermatology.com

Bausch Health abruptly stopped offering prescriptions on its site Dermatology.com. The website offered drugs online to treat conditions like acne, wrinkles, and eczema, and launched just weeks ago.
Bloomberg's Emma Court, who first reported the news, said that the move came after hundreds of dermatologists signed a petition to Bausch Health asking the company to shut down its service.
The $9 billion drugmaker was following a strategy similar to buzzy startups like Roman and Hims, which use online doctor visits to prescribe Viagra and hair-loss pills online.
"I believe that we are ahead of a mega-trend here," Bill Humphries, president of Bausch's Ortho Dermatologics business, told Business Insider in February.
A Bausch Health spokesperson confirmed Wednesday to Business Insider that the site will not include patient consultations when it returns.
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Bausch Health abruptly shut down prescribing through its Dermatology.com website just weeks after launching it.

The move, first reported by Bloomberg's Emma Court, came shortly after hundreds of dermatologists signed a petition asking the company to shut down its service, Bloomberg reported.

A Bausch Health spokesperson said in a statement that Dermatology.com will not include patient consultations when the website returns.

"We are reimagining dermatology.com to have a significant focus on patient health education, and are committed to helping patients find local dermatologists for in-office consultations," the spokesperson said.

The $9 billion drugmaker, formerly known as Valeant Pharmaceuticals, had been following a strategy similar to buzzy startups like Roman and Hims, which use online doctor visits to prescribe Viagra and hair-loss pills online.

They've attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and pioneered a new way for patients to see doctors and get care.

In February, Bausch Health launched its version of the service on Dermatology.com. The site offered the ability for patients to get a prescription through a virtual doctor visit. The company said it was responding to patient demand, and that it was helping address the difficulty some patients have in getting in to see a dermatologist.

"I believe we are ahead of a mega-trend here," Bill Humphries, the president of Bausch Health's Ortho Dermatologics business, told Business Insider at the time.

The site used RxDefine to power the online doctor's visits. The clinicians used for the site worked for third-party, physician-owned medical groups, Chase Feiger, cofounder of RxDefine, said in a statement.

"The initial dermatology.com launch was a beta test, we learned a lot and are making modifications before re-launching," Feiger said.

While Bausch Health was the first pharmaceutical company to set up an online site to directly prescribe medications to patients, it isn't alone in exploring the new way to reach patients.

Ro, Roman's parent company, has teamed up with the biotech company Gelesis to offer a weight management product on its site.

"We're working with pretty much everyone across the pharmacy industry," Umar Afridi, cofounder and CEO of online pharmacy Truepill told Business Insider in February. "Drug manufacturers happen to be a big area where we're seeing a lot of interest."