Potential Tariff Impact on Availability & Accessibility of Medications for Telehealth Patients

In this Pharmaceutical Executive Video Interview, Peter Ax, Founder & CEO of UpScriptHealth, discusses the impact of tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry, highlighting that tariffs will initially affect pharmaceutical companies, particularly those dealing with branded medications and generics. He notes that tariffs could lead to strategic supply chain changes, including potential US manufacturing shifts. Digital health platforms like UpScriptHealth aim to reduce friction and costs in healthcare, potentially offsetting tariff impacts. Ax emphasizes the importance of telehealth in ensuring medication availability and the strategic partnerships between digital health platforms and pharma companies to improve patient care and access. He also praises Pfizer's approach to delivering comprehensive care rather than just selling medications.

Beyond cost, how might tariffs affect the availability and accessibility of specific medications, particularly for patients relying on direct-to-patient telehealth?

If you think about the way direct-to-patient telehealth works, is we allow a consumer to go on the web and talk to a clinician right away, assuming they're prescribed some medication, then we have to somehow assure availability, or at least have some insight into availability.

One of the real benefits of our platform is that we're able to partner with pharmaceutical companies to be sure that we have supply available, or that they've partnered with a fulfillment partner that is assured to have supply available. In a lot of ways, we can solve kind of nuances in the market that makes supply difficult because of tariffs. Think about a pharma company that enlists engages with UpScript to develop a platform. We end up partnering with a fulfillment partner, and we can assure the supply through that fulfillment partner, because we're dealing with the manufacturer, and the manufacturer can help make sure that medications are accessible. So, in a lot of ways, telehealth can mitigate the impact of tariffs and the and the changes in supply that may occur.

I think only time will tell which medications it impacts and how it impacts, whether it impacts generic drugs more than it does branded drugs. There will, of course, be some level of impact, but it won't be across the board. It's going to be in different pockets, for example. It will be easier to get medication in New York City than it is in Des Moines, Iowa, for example, and so telehealth can help sort of mitigate those differences.