STAT+: Will bargain-basement telehealth visits help pharma drive drug scripts?
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- Sprout launched a $10 telehealth consult via code PINKPILL after the FDA expanded Addyi use to all women under 65 in December.
- Prescribery runs the telehealth visits and receives “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in pharma fees annually, according to its CEO CFO Ross Pope.
- Addyi is a daily low‑libido drug now approved for all women under 65, expanding its potential market beyond the original premenopausal women label.
- Daniel Eisenkraft Klein warns that these discount structures are part of a “financial architecture” designed to steer patients toward specific branded meds, raising kickback concerns.
Why it matters: Sprout and Prescribery pocket $10 consult fees and pharma fees of hundreds of thousands of dollars, while patients get cheap access but risk unnecessary prescriptions; regulators face enforcement actions.
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