Copyright 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
March 30, 1999, Tuesday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. C7
LENGTH: 550 words
HEADLINE:
EXPRESS SCRIPTS PLANS AN ONLINE DRUGSTORE
BYLINE:
Judith Vandewater; Of The Post-Dispatch
BODY:
* The company is the first pharmacy benefit manager to announce a
venture into online retailing.
Express Scripts Inc. is preparing to use
its information-age savvy and mail-order delivery system to power an online
drugstore, YourPharmacy.com.
Online pharmacies are relatively new in
E-commerce. Drugstore.com, Soma.com and PlanetRx.com blazed the way with sites
offering prescriptions, over-the-counter medicines and health and beauty
products. Express Scripts is the first pharmacy benefit manager to announce a
venture into online retailing. Express Scripts negotiates discounts with
pharmacy and drug manufacturers. It can track prescription patterns of
physicians and drug usage by HMO members.
It offers mail-order delivery
for people whose chronic conditions require ongoing treatment, although most of
its claims are processed through about 5,000 local pharmacies.
Analysts
think the online pharmacies are competing for the 12 percent to 13 percent of
retail drug sales delivered by mail-order. Express Scripts and other major
pharmacy benefit managers balk at holding the door open for their online
competitors and have refused to process prescription drug charges for products
ordered online.
As a pharmacy benefit manager, Express Scripts processes
all the prescription charges for participating HMOs, unions and large employers.
Once it completes the purchase of Diversified Pharmaceutical Services, Express
Scripts will have 47 million customers.
Customers who already order by
mail will find Internet ordering more convenient. Express Scripts expects some
early cannibalization of its mail-order sales, but it also expects online
commerce to grow rapidly because of its convenience.
Gregg Rotenberg,
president of YourPharmacy.Com, said analysts believe that 80 percent of all
households will be making Internet purchases within three to five years.
Besides prescription drugs, Express Scripts' online store will stock
about 15,000 common health and beauty products priced to compete with discount
drug stores. YourPharmacy will offer overnight delivery at an added cost.
Initially, prescription orders will arrive separate from shampoos and
toiletries.
Express Scripts will expand its pharmacy warehouses to
provide for single shipment orders should that become important to consumers.
Customers ordering a certain class of restricted prescriptions over the Internet
will be asked to supply the written drug order.
Other prescriptions will
be varified by phone or fax communication with the prescribing physician.
Express Scripts is experimenting with a system that will allow physicians to
submit prescriptions online.
Earth City-based Express Scripts expects to
have the site running in the next few months. It is also launching a drug
information site, DrugDigest.org. Rotenberg said the latter site will contain no
product advertising because research shows that consumers want drug information
to be credible and unbiased and not aligned with drug manufacturers.
St.
Louis-based Influence Communications and New York City-based Mediapolis are
building both sites. The service will be staffed by employees of
YourPharmacy.com, the Express Scripts e-commerce subsidiary. Rotenberg said the
new company will hire up to 100 employees over the next year.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO Photo headshot of (Gregg) Rotenberg
LOAD-DATE: March 31, 1999
