You shouldnt have to choose between filling your prescriptions and paying bills Kiah Williams
Every day in this country,
families are forced to make
impossible choices
when it comes to their health care.
Like Kimberly, who said,
“There was times I had to choose
between my food and my pills.
It wasn’t luxury stuff,
because I didn’t make that much.
It was like, ‘Can I get
shampoo or conditioner?’
Things you take for granted.”
And Debbie, who said,
“You put your medicine in one hand,
your living costs in the other.
OK. Well, what am I going to do?
Am I going to get my medicine
or am I going to pay my bills?
Well, I can’t live without my medicine,
but I can’t live if I don’t pay my bills.”
Ten thousand people die
every month in this country,
because they don’t take
the medicine that they need.
More people die
from not taking medications
than opioid overdoses
and car accidents combined.
But you can’t take medicine
if you can’t afford it.
Today, the average household
spends 3,000 dollars a year
on medications.
About a third of folks who are uninsured
said that they stopped
taking medicine as prescribed
because of cost.
Even folks with insurance,
if they make under 35,000 dollars a year,
half of them report
skipping the medications
if their insurance doesn’t cover it.
So there are 10 million adults
like Kimberly and like Debbie
who are forced to make
impossible choices every day.
We all know that prescription
drug prices are too high.
And our health care system,
that makes some folks uninsured
and other folks underinsured,
doesn’t prioritize
people who need access now
and need medications now.
Ten million – it’s a big number,
but it’s also a solvable number,
because there’s also 10 billion dollars
of perfectly good, unused medication
that goes to waste.
So this is an injustice on two sides:
people not getting the medicine
that they need to survive and to thrive,
and that very same medication
being sent to a medical waste incinerator
to be destroyed.
This waste is unconscionable,
but it also offers an opportunity.
I started SIRUM,
a not-for-profit technology company,
with my cofounders Adam and George,
to turn discarded medications
into a lifeline,
just like the medications
in this warehouse.
We may not be able to fix
all the ways in which
our health care system is failing us,
but we can fix this one.
Medications come from manufacturers
and wholesalers who have safety stock,
and when it’s short-dated,
they destroy it.
It also comes from health care facilities
like hospitals, pharmacies
and nursing homes,
who end up with surplus
when a patient stops taking medication
or when they pass away.
We can use this untapped
source of medications
to supply all 10 million people
who need medications.
And we can do this today.
SIRUM gets surplus medications
by putting recycling bins into
these hundreds of facilities
that have surplus.
They fill the bin,
and when the box is full,
SIRUM initiates a courier pickup
to pick up that medication,
and we handle the shipping, the tracking,
the manifests and the tax receipt.
Medicine donors want to donate
because it’s actually cheaper and easier
than the highly regulated
medicine destruction process.
And there are strong tax incentives
to actually donate.
We then deliver those donated medications
to people who need it.
A new prescription comes in,
and our platform matches that patient need
with the inventory that’s available.
Our platform then generates
a warehouse pick list,
the medications are picked
and the prescriptions filled.
We are building the 21st-century
pharmacy experience
that low-income families deserve.
Patients can register
in under five minutes
and have access to
over 500 different medications,
a stable list of medications
for everything from heart disease
to mental health conditions,
actually representing over 75 percent
of all prescriptions prescribed
in the United States today.
We also partner with a network of doctors,
nurses and case managers
at community health centers
and free clinics
that refer patients to the service.
We make it as easy
for these health care providers
to have a prescription filled
with donated medications
as it is to send a prescription
to a local pharmacy.
And patients can pick up medications
on-site at one of our partners
or have medications delivered
directly to their home.
By circumventing
the traditional supply chain,
we’re able to offer flat,
transparent pricing –
about two dollars for a month’s supply
of most medications.
And that allows a predictable,
affordable price
that folks can actually budget for.
We’ve already supplied enough medication
for 150,000 people.
But we can do more.
Our goal is to reach one million people
with approaching a billion dollars
of unused medicine
in the next five years,
scaling our program to 12 states.
At this scale, we can actually cover
communities that are home
to 40 percent of the 10 million people
who lack consistent, affordable access.
Our direct service to one million people
will drive price competition
for so many more.
Walmart launched one of the only
price innovations in pharmacy
in 2006,
by offering a limited list of medications
for a flat fee of four dollars.
This sparked incredible change.
It sparked competitors
to offer other lists
and price match guarantees.
By targeting transparent,
affordable medications
into these new states,
we can actually drive
regional price competition
that drives down the prices
for entire low-income communities.
Our health care system is complex.
It is daunting.
It feels impossible to make headway.
But we can completely
reimagine medicine access.
By using surplus medications
as a beachhead to force change
into this multibillion dollar industry,
we can create radical access
to medications
based on a fundamental belief
that people who live in one of
the wealthiest nations in the world
can and should have access
to medicine that they need
to survive and to thrive.
I do not pretend to have
all of the answers
to fix all of the problems
in our health care system.
But getting medications
to the millions of people
who need it to live a healthy life,
saving medicine to save lives –
that is something we can do today.
Thank you.