PhilRx Triples Patient Adherence with Leading Dermatology Brand

Here’s How Phil Unlocked Their Unique Value

By building an access program focused on improving patient access, covered dispenses, and provider engagement, this dermatology brand achieved three times higher adherence.

90%

Patient Enrollment

3x

Patient Adherence

2x

Higher Covered Dispenses

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A novel dermatology treatment launched in 2021 to help patients with acne. Even with their carefully crafted GTM strategy, the brand team was facing several challenges that were limiting its commercial success. With a premium price for its innovative, cold chain therapy, the brand was facing fierce competition in a market saturated with lower-priced generic alternatives.


Plus, a significant portion of the brand’s sales were parents purchasing for their children, contributing to high rates of incorrect usage and low refill adherence. The brand was also experiencing subpar PA submission rates and high PA denials, leaving many patients uncovered with high out-of-pocket costs.

The team was looking for an innovative approach to improve patient outcomes and brand performance for their novel therapy. They were in search of an alternative channel partner that could help them achieve their overarching strategic goals:

  1. Drive Adoption, Engagement, and Adherence To maximize treatment efficacy for patients, the brand team wanted to ensure patients and providers were educated about the product and understood the importance of staying on therapy as prescribed, working alongside a partner that could support their education and adherence programs.

  2. Improve Medication Affordability and Access To improve medication access and affordability for patients, the brand team was in search of a partner with the right processes and a strong pharmacy network in place to ensure they could drive PA submissions and optimize the chance of covered dispenses.

  3. Make Data-Driven Program Decisions and Optimizations To navigate the brand’s unique patient needs, provider activity, and payer behaviors, the team was looking for actionable insights so they could proactively adjust and optimize their business rules, dispense logic, and program design.

Partnering with Phil to Improve Covered Dispenses, Pull Through, and Adherence

The team recognized the value of a strategic access partner that could contribute to its brand objectives. The brand team was familiar with Phil’s partnership approach, given the successful launch and commercialization of an eye care therapy within the manufacturer’s portfolio. The dermatology team was excited to partner with Phil to develop a tailored access program for the skincare brand that would achieve similar success. 

With the clear initiative to maximize covered dispenses, improve patient outcomes, and strengthen provider engagement, the brand selected Phil as its digital hub partner. To ensure the desired impact and efficacy of the program on a national level, the brand team worked with Phil to develop a comprehensive pilot program.

The pilot program was carefully designed to target the brand’s key objectives:

  1. Streamline the Medication Access Experience for Patients We offered simple mobile enrollment with home delivery and auto-refills to reduce access barriers, drive pull through, and increase adherence.

  2. Simplify the PA Process for Providers to Drive Submissions & Approval Rates We introduced a simplified PA process to improve HCP submission rates and increased education on plan-specific requirements to maximize PA approval rates.

  3. Strategically Optimize Covered Dispenses We leveraged our national pharmacy network with 95%+ plan coverage, and equipped the brand team with data on payer behaviors to make proactive program adjustments.

In a 3-month span, the pilot program significantly exceeded expectations with incredible results:

Pull Through Rate

70%

increase from pre-pilot

PA Submission Rate

68%

increase from pre-pilot

Covered Dispenses

2x

higher than pre-pilot

Mirah | Testimonial | Case Study

The Phil team has been an incredible partner

From planning to launch, they made sure that every detail of the program was designed with our patients as top priority – that’s the most important thing for us.

Renee Kasun

Brand Director, Dermatology

Driving Dermatology Success with PhilRx

With the huge success of the pilot program, Phil and the brand team worked together to roll out the program on a national scale. Based on learnings from the pilot, we made the following optimizations to maximize the program’s impact: The pilot program was carefully designed to target the brand’s key objectives:

  1. Streamline the Medication Access Experience for Patients We offered simple mobile enrollment with home delivery and auto-refills to reduce access barriers, drive pull through, and increase adherence.

  2. Simplify the PA Process for Providers to Drive Submissions & Approval Rates We introduced a simplified PA process to improve HCP submission rates and increased education on plan-specific requirements to maximize PA approval rates.

  3. Strategically Optimize Covered Dispenses 
We leveraged our national pharmacy network with 95%+ plan coverage, and equipped the brand team with data on payer behaviors to make proactive program adjustments.

In a 3-month span, the pilot program significantly exceeded expectations with incredible results:

Deepak | Testimonial | Case Study

I’m really proud of how our teams came together to make the program a success –

it was a great display of strategy, data, innovation, and patient centricity. I’m excited to see what the future of our partnership holds.

Renee Kasun

Brand Director, Dermatology

To ensure a successful national launch, Phil partnered with the dermatology brand’s field and home-office teams to create a digital hub program that seamlessly integrated into their existing programs and workflows.

The program included the following tactical elements:


  • Simple Mobile Enrollment After receiving a new prescription, patients received a text message to enroll in the PhilRx Digital Hub on their mobile device within minutes.

  • Seamless PA Process With a software-driven PA process, we pre-populated form to allow providers to simply review and submit.

  • National Dispense Network Patients benefited from a Phil’s network of partner pharmacies with 95%+ plan coverage, ensuring patients could benefit from covered dispenses and home delivery.

  • Informed Auto Refills Patients opted into auto refills and were notified regarding upcoming refills, keeping them informed and able to make adjustments as needed.

  • Full Visibility into the Rx Journey The brand team gained real-time data at the patient, provider, payer, and program level, and actionable insights from the Phil team.

Transformative Results Powered by PhilRx

The partnership laid the groundwork for a transformative access program that drove industry-leading outcomes for the brand:

90%

Patient Enrollment


3x

Refill Adherence (vs. pre-pilot)

80%

PA Submission Rates

2x

Higher Covered Dispenses (vs. pre-pilot)

Placeholder | Testimonial | Case Study

The best part of the program has been the impact we’ve seen for our patients –

knowing that more patients than ever can access and stay on therapy to improve their quality of life is a great accomplishment.

Renee Kasun

Brand Director, Dermatology

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