OptimizeRx's (OPRX -1.25%) platform uses electronic health records to connect physicians with pharmaceutical companies, essentially eliminating the need for in-person drug reps.
In this video from "Beat & Raise" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on Sept. 23, Fool.com contributor Brian Withers and tech, healthcare, and cannabis editor and analyst Olivia Zitkus discuss why that approach could solve a few major issues in the pharmaceutical space, including cost and reputation.
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Brian Withers: I'm all about cutting out the middleman when it comes to selling merchants, it seems OptimizeRx is helping the pharma companies, I would say, go direct and potentially reduce the need for expensive pharma salespeople, the bag-carrying pharma reps. Is there evidence that you see that this strategy is working and are big pharma companies reducing their dependency for sales teams? I guess I ask because there's been a lot of stories in the news where pharma reps may not be the most respected profession out there as far as respective and trusted as being drug pushers. [laughs]
Olivia Zitkus: Right, that's a valid concern especially in this day and age. In the middle of an opioid crisis and all these issues where you don't have the right product and patient match. Other companies talk about that but in healthcare, it's obviously [laughs] perhaps more important, but yeah, the go-direct looks promising. It's 55% of EHRs limit rep access to digital systems, so that's already one huge barrier that pharma companies are facing and I think if they have a way to directly access the 370 EHRs of about 500 total, that OptimizeRx has access to, that's good on them and also OptimizeRx is already in front of about 60% of prescribing physicians in the United States. Not quite the physician exposure as Doximity. But I think they've proven that they've been able to get it in front of doctors and doctors are using it. Yeah. I think skipping the middleman both from a marketing perspective for the company itself, how does this look to people? And just yeah, from an efficiency standpoint, I think the go-direct method has a lot of potential and could absolutely work.
