Ro CEO on GLP-1 drug shortage: US healthcare is '1 of 1'

GLP-1 medication supply constraints have left many patients grappling with the challenge of accessing these highly sought-after drugs. Ro CEO Zach Reitano joins Asking for a Trend to shed light on how his company aims to make supply information more readily available to patients in need.

Reitano underscores Ro's core mission of "building goal-oriented healthcare" tailored to the individual needs of its patients. Recently, the company has been dedicating its efforts to addressing obesity, but they have also recognized "a massive shortage" in the availability of GLP-1 drugs. Consequently, Ro has been proactively "building products and services to help patients navigate and manage through these supply challenges."

Reitano characterizes the current US healthcare landscape as "one of one," noting that "never before in healthcare has the majority of the US population been eligible for a drug." This situation has led to patients and providers "desperately" wanting access to these therapies, resulting in severe supply-demand dynamics, a challenge Reitano believes could persist for years to come.

Reitano explains Ro's goal is to "crowdsource" supply information with its tracker, streamlining the process of accessing these drugs for both patients and healthcare providers.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend.

This post was written by Angel Smith

Video transcript

For GOP.

One's demand is not the problem.

It's supply that has left thousands of patients struggling to find available drugs, telehealth company.

Rowe has a solution with a tracker that aims to make supply information more transparent and accessible, co founder and CEO of Rowe Zach.

Great.

Tao joins me now, Zach, thanks so much for joining the show.

Uh Maybe start Zach just explain a little bit to viewers who, who may not all be familiar a little bit more about Rowe uh the problem you all trying to solve for and I'm interested.

Of course, also these G LP ones.

What's been the effect Zach on your business?

Yeah.

Ha Happy to.

Thanks for having me on Josh.

Um at a very, very high level.

Uh At Row, we are building goal oriented health care.

So we help patients achieve their health care goals in the most effective and convenient way.

So patients come to us and they start with what they want to achieve.

I wanna have a child and we have fertility services.

I wanna have better sex and we have products that I wanna lose weight and we have high quality obesity care center around G LP ones and we deliver that really effective and convenient experience by vertically integrating the business.

So we have a National Digital Doctor's office live in all 50 states.

Uh We own and operate our own clear certified and cap accredited lab and we have pharmacies distributed throughout the country.

So again, it's that doctor's office, lab and pharmacy all through the lens of helping a patient achieve their goals.

And over the last six plus years, we've helped millions of patients, one in every single county across the US.

We've been in obesity.

Uh as you mentioned.

So we've been in obesity for about four years have helped hundreds of thousands of patients start their weight loss journey and have uh built what we refer to as the Robo membership.

Uh and that is high quality obesity care centered around G LP ONE S and that's been around for 18 months.

But as you uh kicked off with, there's been a massive shortage throughout the last 18 months and that has resulted in us continuously building products and services to help patients manage through it, expanding our formulary.

Um And again, as you said, demand has far exceeded supply across the country.

And I, I'm just curious um because you've been in this for a bit, Zach demand for G LP ones.

What are you seeing?

How strong is, is it and any kind of line of sight, Zach into where in broad strokes, the demand is coming from that, you all see men, women, young, old, um all of the above.

Uh the, the U si think this is actually a one of one situation um when it comes to health care and, and the invention of a new, a new drug, a lot of people are drawing different sort of historical analogies to either blood pressure medication or statins.

And there are a lot of similarities to that, but never before in health care has the majority of the US population been eligible for a drug, right?

So the US population, about 75% of people have overweight or have obesity.

Uh this drug is incredibly effective, it's scalable.

Um patients desperately want it and providers want it.

So those five things have never existed before.

And you know, about 50 million people are covered for these uh drugs uh by their by commercial insurance.

But 150 million people in the US are eligible for them.

So I think that we, we are dramatically underestimating the demand.

Um and I think we're going to see that demand supply mismatch for years.

Um Now Novo and, and Lily, you know, starting in 2022 probably through the end of this decade are going to invest 50 to $75 billion to increase that supply.

But again, when you run the numbers, when you look at how much is required and how many people are eligible and the efficacy of the drugs and the breadth of the label is expanding every single week.

We see new studies come out showing it it isn't just an obesity drug, right?

It's for cardiovascular disease and diabetes and sleep apnea and chronic kidney disease.

And more so I think you're gonna see demand outstrip supply for uh for the foreseeable future.

The challenge is and what we built um in terms of this trend of this G LP one supply tracker a little bit about what the tracker does and why we built it.

It is trying to help patients and providers crowdsource supply patients.

Come on and say I need supply what drug and dose they need and their location, their zip code and people come on and say I found supply and when they do, we notify everyone in within 100 miles automatically that pharmacy, the address, the phone number so they can call and transfer their prescription.

And the second thing it does is it automatically notifies the FDA if, if the patient wants about their experience with the shortage in real time to make sure that the agency has as much information about real life, real time patient experiences as as possible.

The the really interesting thing is this tool shouldn't need to exist, right?

So we built it, we've seen tremendous traction.

We've seen thousands of uh shortage submissions already just in the last 36 hours since it's launched.

But inventory management, a basic inventory management is a solved problem in other industries.

Right.

You and I can go to Best Buy.

You're, you said you're, you're, you're in the studio in New York City right now.

You and I can go to Best Buy or Best buy.com and see the Best buys in New York.

Um, and it'll tell us how, if something's in stock, how many are available, you know, there are two or three available and I need to rush to Best Buy if it's available for pick up.

Can I be on a notification list?

And that should be the case at your local pharmacy and the reason why that's so important.

And I think that, you know, people hear about the shortages and it's, it's definitely, unless you've experienced it, it's hard to truly understand the, the severity of the problem, which is that it's essential for health outcomes that patients get continued access to their medication, for chronic diseases, for diabetes, for obesity, for heart disease, for chronic disease, for all of these things, this continued access.

And so every single month, it's a hunt to find supply and it really will negatively impact patients and health outcomes.

And so both both patients and providers are having a really hard time with this.

So for us, you know, we're trying to build around the system that exists.

Um It shouldn't, this tool shouldn't need to exist, but we're, we're building it to increase access for patients.

Zach.

It's a big important topic.

One consumers and investors care a lot about.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Josh.

I hope you have a great rest of your day.

You too.