Eye for Pharma – Prioritising patients over profits

On January 25, 2016, leading online pharmaceutical magazine, Eye for Pharma, published an article about For Benefit Medicines (FBM), entitled ‘Prioritising patients over profits’.

The article, written by Dr Nicola Davies, discusses the FBM patient-centric business model that distributes all profits to patient support and medical research, and explains the origin of the business from the perspective of FBM founder, DR. Barry Frost, Sydney, who works in partnership with John Hurley. 

The FBM concept was initiated when brands went off-patent in Australia, due to the reimbursement system. DR. Frost told Eye for Pharma that at the point when all brands were priced the same at patent expiry, he and Mr Hurley saw the opportunity to develop a product that would differentiate on something other than monetary value.

“To take this concept to the next level, we decided to look at the idea of whether we could develop a model where the patient in a given disease state could actually have a say and help others now, and in the future, by supporting a brand, or a series of brands that funded patient support,” said DR. Frost.

Soon after the birth of the business concept, DR.  Frost learned that his wife had been living with breast cancer, and subsequently decided to focus on marketing generic versions of the breast cancer drugs Anastrozole and Letrozole.

There are an estimated 30,000 Australian patients on these medications, and FBM aims to capture 50 per cent of these prescriptions each year, and donate all profits to Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) and The Breast Cancer Institute of Australia for patient support and medical research.

Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/1UWOnou