Thirty Madison, the company behind a growing string of direct-to-consumer health brands, is moving into allergies. Its newest brand, called Picnic, lets users order allergy medications delivered to their homes on a subscription basis.
The company is specifically focused on treatments for allergic rhinitis or seasonal allergies — not food allergies. Most of the treatments it offers are over-the-counter, such as the generic versions of Benadryl, Zyrtec and Flonase. It also sells a few prescription medications, which require a virtual consultation with a physician, including oral antihistamines, prescription nasal sprays and eye drops.
Part of the idea behind Picnic is to help people figure out which treatment would be the most appropriate for their symptoms. Its website steers users toward a “quiz” they can fill out with their symptoms to get treatment recommendations.
It’s also supposed to make it easier for people to get instructions on the best way to take their medications, Picnic General Manager Alexis Tarlow wrote in a blog post. For example, some people still feel sleepy after taking “non-drowsy” antihistamines.
Like Thirty Madison’s other brands, Picnic is built around a cash-pay subscription model — the company does not take insurance. Last year, the New York-based company raised $47 million to expand its direct-to-consumer model. It currently has direct-to-consumer sites for hair loss, acid reflux, and migraines, the latter of which stirred up some concerns from doctors over whether telemedicine evaluations are safe evaluating the cause of a headache.
The company launched its first brand, Keeps, in 2018, which offers prescription and over-the-counter hair loss treatments. It went toe-to-toe with other direct-to-consumer men’s health sites, including Hims and Ro.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Since then, all of them have expanded the scope of conditions they treat. Hims, which went public in January, started offering group therapy and online psychiatric evaluations for medication. After raising $200 million last year, Ro acquired Workpath, a software platform for home-based care.
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