On July 17, 2025, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, along with Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Peter Welch of Vermont, released a new investigative report titled “Big Pharma’s New Sales Scheme: Expanding Patient Access or a Virtual Pill Mill? A Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth Platform Investigation”.1
Over the past nine months, the senators investigated telehealth platforms that Pfizer and Eli Lilly launched in partnership with paid telehealth companies, including Populus, UpScriptHealth, Form Health, Cove, and 9amHealth. The investigation found that these drug companies appeared to use hand-picked telehealth providers to drive consumers toward specific high-cost medications.2
According to the report, these pharmaceutical companies saturated television and digital media with advertisements designed to boost demand. The telehealth platforms they backed made it easy for patients to obtain prescriptions with just a few clicks, raising concerns about whether these services prioritize patient care or profits.3
Senator Durbin said:
Sick of advertisements urging you to ‘ask your doctor’? It gets worse. Big Pharma’s newest sales scheme funnels patients to telehealth companies chosen and paid by the drug companies, seeking to influence prescription pads. Our findings shine a light on potential conflicts of interest and inappropriate prescribing that can balloon health care spending and lead to inferior care for patients. With these revelations, we must crack down on Big Pharma’s latest ploy to promote and sell expensive medications at the expense of patients and taxpayers.4
Potential Conflicts of Interest Between Pharma and Telehealth Companies Probed
In October 2024, the senators demanded answers from the CEOs of Pfizer and Eli Lilly, sending letters that questioned the companies’ recent launch of new direct-to-consumer (DTC) telehealth platforms. In March 2025, the lawmakers followed up by sending letters to the five telehealth companies, each holding contracts with Pfizer or Eli Lilly, to investigate their financial ties and the potential influence on prescribing practices for those companies’ medications.5
The senators acknowledged that telehealth can play a vital role in improving access to care, particularly for patients with under-treated conditions; however, they warned that without comprehensive services, such as full evaluations and consistent follow-up, and with corporate profit motives driving decisions, these platforms risk compromising care quality and patient outcomes.6
Report Reveals Pharma Influence in Telehealth Prescribing
The investigation found that telehealth platforms working with Pfizer and Eli Lilly prescribed their medications at unusually high rates. LillyDirect routed patients to telehealth providers, and 74 percent of those patients received a pharmaceutical product prescription, including 100 percent of patients who had a virtual visit through Cove. Similarly, 85 percent of patients routed by PfizerForAll and seen by a provider through UpScript received a prescription. 9amHealth patients were six times more likely to receive an Eli Lilly drug than a comparable brand, and two-thirds of all Form Health prescriptions were for Eli Lilly products.
These figures suggest a strong preference for partner medications sold by drug company partners of the telehealth companies. Many of these prescriptions were written came after brief consultations with patients. Medical care providers often did not conduct video calls, and one job advertisement by UpScriptHealth stated that clinicians could handle 6–10 patients per hour, implying quick approvals or denials. Eli Lilly’s telehealth company partner Cove also allowed patients to choose the drug they wanted prescribed before seeing a provider, raising concerns about predetermined prescribing.7
Although the investigation found no formal bonuses or incentives, the pharmaceutical companies appeared to influence prescribing behavior in other ways. UpScriptHealth shared data with Pfizer identifying which doctors wrote prescriptions, and Form Health medication prescribers received multiple payments from Eli Lilly. In one case, a single medical care provider’s frequent prescribing of a Lilly drug led to over $230,000 in Medicare spending in a single year.
The investigation also found that Pfizer and Eli Lilly received extensive patient data from their telehealth partners, including demographics, medication adherence, and in some cases, patient contact information and prescriber identities. These partnerships involved significant financial investment. Eli Lilly paid over $940,000 to three telehealth partners, and one telehealth company charged up to $2.45 million per contract.8
Pharma Companies Defend Telehealth Portals Against the Report’s Claims
Pfizer and Eli Lilly stated that their online telehealth portals aim to simplify patients’ access to health care and clinicians are not pressured to prescribe their medications.
Eli Lilly said that the report misrepresents its portal, which provides patients with educational resources, options to connect with independent telehealth platforms or in-person care, and convenient home delivery of certain FDA-approved Eli Lilly drugs, only when prescribed by independent medical care providers.
Pfizer emphasized that its partnerships with third-party telehealth services are designed to allow clinicians to make independent decisions about patient care, including the choice of drugs they prescribe.9
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Click here to view References:1 Durbin R et al. Big Pharma’s New Sales Scheme: Expanding Patient Access or a Virtual Pill Mill? A Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth Platform Investigation. 2025.
2 U.S. Senator for Illinois. Durbin, Sanders, Warren, Welch Release Investigative Report On Pharma’s New Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth Platforms. July 17, 2025.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Durbin R. et al. Big Pharma’s New Sales Scheme: Expanding Patient Access or a Virtual Pill Mill? A Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth Platform Investigation. 2025.
8 Ibid.
9 Ovalle D. Drugmaker telehealth deals risk unnecessary prescribing, Senate probe finds. The Spokesman Review July 17, 2025.
2 Responses
Article title; senators investigate. / Full stop! That’s how you know the issue will go absolutely nowhere.
Senators language quotes; Shine a light. Crack down! / Oh brother. When have we heard all of this before? Is this a new war on medicine? War on price? War on drugs? Whatever, the odds of these people cracking down on anything except a cold glass of fine scotch at the end of the day. Dial in some fresh stock options ahead of the crowds.
Please allow me to que you into some basic facts how these runaway governments actually work. They’re not going to investigate the biggest financial donors. And they won’t go up against them in the news or any other meaningful court of public opinion either. The corporations own everything. All the public gets is a big political theater, bread for the masses. Endless investigations that goes nowhere. But maybe just maybe, dare to dream you can eat fruit loops again without fearing for your life. When it comes to corporate accountability in the US, the bridge to nowhere never stops being built.
In a remarkable turn of recent events, now instead of fines based on income to finally reign in runaway corporations, we instead get ‘surveillance pricing’, where the same corporations charge people whom have more money, a higher price. Instead of fines based on income, we get cost of goods and services based on income. But don’t worry, that model will not be applied to the ultra wealthy. Brilliant.
Did the article close with the term; ‘independent medical care providers’, while referencing pharmasuetical prescriptions? Providing no additional explanation seems like a more appropriate course of action here, the topic matter speaks for itself. Telehealth! That’s code word for dialing it in. Asleep on the job. Technocratic automated future. Just in time for AI 3d imagery to flood the market. Are you putting any of this together yet? The status quo is an illusion. The last thing any of these companies care about is your health or a more affordable product. They’re not investigating anything. Not honestly. As is predictable, what always happens, the entire song and dance is scripted, to provide liability cover and distract from the soon to be mysteriously absent whistle blowers and actual victims of the malpractice. The only people in the managerial class whom ever face consequences, are those whom dare to tell the truth. Don’t worry. Nobody is going to jail.
Just another way for our “representatives” to demand more from the hands that bribe them.