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这家医疗公司要“破译行业密码”,大幅降低处方药售价

Sy Mukherjee
2020-08-27

他们招募了亚马逊和Airbnb的元老维纳雅克·海德来帮助他们实现这个使命。

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杰弗里·柴肯和马特·柴肯兄弟有一个雄心勃勃的计划:降低处方药的零售价。柴肯兄弟招募了亚马逊(Amazon)和Airbnb的元老维纳雅克·海德(Vinayak Hegde)来帮助他们实现这个使命。海德在业内有很高的知名度,他了解消费者与技术之间的相互关系,现在在柴肯兄弟的公司Blink Health担任首席运营官兼总裁。

虽然Blink在本月早些时候已经公布了任命海德的消息,但这是杰弗里·柴肯和海德首次接受媒体采访。

处方药行业非常奇怪。供应链各部分之间的关系错综复杂,而且通常非常隐蔽,消费者往往并不清楚他们要支付哪些成本。实际支出取决于消费者的保险以及有能力抬高价格的各种中间机构,如药房福利管理者(PBM)、药店、药品经销商以及其他各类机构等。极具讽刺意味的是,他们会相互指责对方是高药价的罪魁祸首。

《财富》杂志之前曾经报道过,Blink Health要做的是绕过提高药价的中间机构。但海德和柴肯告诉《财富》,过去几年他们调整了策略,包括将开发有医疗保险的美国人这个庞大的市场。实质上,他们要做的是努力扩大其商业模式(受众相对有限)的规模,公司称其商业模式能够将处方药的成本降低高达80%。

海德说:“我想我能在医疗保健的普及方面发挥作用。而且公司所创立的这个平台,可以扩大规模,比如帮助有保险和没有保险的患者,这将给他们带来显著的影响。”

众所周知,美国处方药价格全球最高。从现任总统唐纳德·特朗普到前民主党提名候选人希拉里·克林顿,再到本届民主党提名候选人乔·拜登,许多政治人物都承诺要采取措施,降低美国人购买处方药的实付成本。有些提案非常激进,比如特朗普和拜登提出的允许联邦医疗保险直接参与药价谈判的提议。但这些提案都没有得到落实。

海德职业生涯的经历非常有趣。他曾在亚马逊任职12年,属于技术专业出身,但最终却进入了市场营销领域。他是Groupon营销团队的负责人之一。他在Airbnb担任全球民宿业务的首席营销官,并担任副总裁,负责全公司的业务增长。

尽管有这些经历,但对于制药行业的供需关系,以及某些地区的特殊需求和对Blink最为重要的扩大规模的能力,海德才初窥门径。这在处方药领域是一项关键技能。

海德说:“加入亚马逊六天后,我听雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)的一位分析师说,亚马逊会资金枯竭最终破产。因此,在亚马逊期间,我用一年半的时间执行了一系列任务,包括在英国和德国启动第三方业务,发布支付系统,允许人们使用银行账户等。”之后他又继续制定了亚马逊的发展策略,从商品目录提供商转变成链接到这些商品的综合性网络服务提供商。

这种系统在当今的电子商务领域似乎已经司空见惯,但它们却是数字医疗公司的基础。一直以来,处方药行业都是一种面对面服务系统,即消费者要在本地药店内买药。要把这样一个行业转变成便利的规模化行业,需要具备技术、物流和市场营销等领域的知识。

柴肯说:“面对一个如此庞大的市场,你会有一个明显的疑问,那就是为什么这个市场没有被打开?根本原因是,这个市场存在一个亟待解决的极其复杂的问题。这个问题就是让患者以最低价格买到处方药,使他们掌握自己处方的控制权和代理权,从而掌控在何处建立处方。”

Blink最开始服务的对象是没有保险或者不想使用保险买药的消费者,但公司的新计划是开发有保险的患者这个市场,这也是公司聘请海德执行的主要任务。归根结底,只要能破译这个行业的密码,将通用药物和品牌药物的电子商务与直接配送相结合,就能大幅降低美国患者的成本。(财富中文网)

译者:Biz

杰弗里·柴肯和马特·柴肯兄弟有一个雄心勃勃的计划:降低处方药的零售价。柴肯兄弟招募了亚马逊(Amazon)和Airbnb的元老维纳雅克·海德(Vinayak Hegde)来帮助他们实现这个使命。海德在业内有很高的知名度,他了解消费者与技术之间的相互关系,现在在柴肯兄弟的公司Blink Health担任首席运营官兼总裁。

虽然Blink在本月早些时候已经公布了任命海德的消息,但这是杰弗里·柴肯和海德首次接受媒体采访。

处方药行业非常奇怪。供应链各部分之间的关系错综复杂,而且通常非常隐蔽,消费者往往并不清楚他们要支付哪些成本。实际支出取决于消费者的保险以及有能力抬高价格的各种中间机构,如药房福利管理者(PBM)、药店、药品经销商以及其他各类机构等。极具讽刺意味的是,他们会相互指责对方是高药价的罪魁祸首。

《财富》杂志之前曾经报道过,Blink Health要做的是绕过提高药价的中间机构。但海德和柴肯告诉《财富》,过去几年他们调整了策略,包括将开发有医疗保险的美国人这个庞大的市场。实质上,他们要做的是努力扩大其商业模式(受众相对有限)的规模,公司称其商业模式能够将处方药的成本降低高达80%。

海德说:“我想我能在医疗保健的普及方面发挥作用。而且公司所创立的这个平台,可以扩大规模,比如帮助有保险和没有保险的患者,这将给他们带来显著的影响。”

众所周知,美国处方药价格全球最高。从现任总统唐纳德·特朗普到前民主党提名候选人希拉里·克林顿,再到本届民主党提名候选人乔·拜登,许多政治人物都承诺要采取措施,降低美国人购买处方药的实付成本。有些提案非常激进,比如特朗普和拜登提出的允许联邦医疗保险直接参与药价谈判的提议。但这些提案都没有得到落实。

海德职业生涯的经历非常有趣。他曾在亚马逊任职12年,属于技术专业出身,但最终却进入了市场营销领域。他是Groupon营销团队的负责人之一。他在Airbnb担任全球民宿业务的首席营销官,并担任副总裁,负责全公司的业务增长。

尽管有这些经历,但对于制药行业的供需关系,以及某些地区的特殊需求和对Blink最为重要的扩大规模的能力,海德才初窥门径。这在处方药领域是一项关键技能。

海德说:“加入亚马逊六天后,我听雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)的一位分析师说,亚马逊会资金枯竭最终破产。因此,在亚马逊期间,我用一年半的时间执行了一系列任务,包括在英国和德国启动第三方业务,发布支付系统,允许人们使用银行账户等。”之后他又继续制定了亚马逊的发展策略,从商品目录提供商转变成链接到这些商品的综合性网络服务提供商。

这种系统在当今的电子商务领域似乎已经司空见惯,但它们却是数字医疗公司的基础。一直以来,处方药行业都是一种面对面服务系统,即消费者要在本地药店内买药。要把这样一个行业转变成便利的规模化行业,需要具备技术、物流和市场营销等领域的知识。

柴肯说:“面对一个如此庞大的市场,你会有一个明显的疑问,那就是为什么这个市场没有被打开?根本原因是,这个市场存在一个亟待解决的极其复杂的问题。这个问题就是让患者以最低价格买到处方药,使他们掌握自己处方的控制权和代理权,从而掌控在何处建立处方。”

Blink最开始服务的对象是没有保险或者不想使用保险买药的消费者,但公司的新计划是开发有保险的患者这个市场,这也是公司聘请海德执行的主要任务。归根结底,只要能破译这个行业的密码,将通用药物和品牌药物的电子商务与直接配送相结合,就能大幅降低美国患者的成本。(财富中文网)

译者:Biz

Geoffrey and Matt Chaiken have an ambitious plan to lower the price that consumers have to pay for their prescription drugs. And they've enlisted the help of a prominent player who's both an Amazon and Airbnb veteran to help achieve their mission through his knowledge of the interplay between consumers and technology: Vinayak Hegde is now the COO and president of the Chaiken brothers' company, Blink Health.

While Blink made their announcement about Hegde's appointment earlier this month, this is the first time that Geoffrey Chaiken, and Hegde himself, have spoken with a media organization.

The prescription drug business is pretty bizarre. It's a maze of supply chain components that are largely obscure, and the consumer doesn't really know what they'll have to pay. Out of pocket costs depend on your insurance, and on the various middlemen—including pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), pharmacies themselves, drug distribution companies, and all sorts of other players—which have the ability to hike up prices. The grand irony being that they all blame each other for, well, who's to blame.

What Blink Health set out to do, as Fortune has previously reported, is bypass the middlemen who make drugs more expensive. But in the past few years, they've changed strategies, Hegde and Chaiken tell Fortune, including by leveraging the large market of Americans who have health insurance. In essence, what they're striving for is to scale a business model—with a relatively limited audience—that the company claims can cut prescription drug costs by as much as 80 percent.

"I think I can make a difference to expand health care to a massive amount of people," says Hegde. "And they are set up in a place where we can actually make that set scale in terms of like, you know, helping patients who have insurance and helping patients who don't have insurance dramatically make a difference to their outcome."

It's no secret that prescription drug costs in the U.S. are among the highest in the world. Politicians ranging from President Donald Trump to former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to current Democratic nominee Joe Biden have all vowed to take action that will lower the out-of-pocket costs paid by Americans for their prescriptions. Some proposals, such as both Trump's and Biden's recommendations that programs like Medicare have the power to directly negotiate the price of drugs, have been more aggressive than others. But none have actually been enacted.

Hegde has had an interesting transformation over the course of his career. A 12-year veteran of Amazon, and a technology professional at heart, he eventually went into the marketing side of business. He was one of the head honchos for Groupon's marketing group. At Airbnb, he was the chief marketing officer for the global homes business and tasked as a VP of growth for the entire company.

What this adds up to is: Hegde is a pupil of the school of supply and demand, and the way in which certain regions have very specific needs—and, most significantly for Blink, the ability to scale. When it comes to prescription drugs, that's a critical skill.

"Six days after I joined Amazon, an analyst from Lehman Brothers said, like, Amazon will run out of money and die," says Hegde. "So I spent one and a half years at Amazon doing a bunch of things such as launching the third party business in the U.K. and Germany, launching payment systems, allowing people to use their bank accounts." He then continued to build out strategies for turning Amazon's original functions as a provider of a catalog of goods into a more comprehensive web services provider linked to those very goods.

Such systems may seem commonplace today within e-commerce, but they form the very backbone of digital health companies. Turning an industry like prescription health care, which has historically been an in-person service system at, say, your local pharmacy, into a scaleable but convenient business takes knowledge of technology, logistics, and marketing.

"When you have such a huge market, the obvious question is, you know, like why hasn't this been cracked?" says Chaiken. "And the basic reason for that is that it's an incredibly complicated problem to solve. And the problem I'm talking about solving is getting patients the lowest price on their prescriptions and giving them control and agency over their prescription so they can control where it's built."

While Blink began by catering to those who didn't have insurance, or didn't want to use insurance in order to purchase drugs, the new plan—and part of what Hegde was hired to propel—is expanding into a network of insured patients. It boils down to this: The nexus of e-commerce and direct delivery of both generic and branded medications could significantly cut costs for American patients—if they can crack the code.

财富中文网所刊载内容之知识产权为财富媒体知识产权有限公司及/或相关权利人专属所有或持有。未经许可,禁止进行转载、摘编、复制及建立镜像等任何使用。
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