Eli Lilly opens its own telehealth channel in Australia, bypassing pharmacies

Lilly's Australian DTC push is the latest turn in a long argument over who sits between a drugmaker and a patient. STAT's Readout newsletter reported it on 2 October. The same issue covered Novartis paying $575 million upfront to license an experimental mRNA autoimmune therapy from China's Abogen Biosciences. It also included a STAT analysis finding that the NIH spent the $34 billion Congress allocated for 2026 research grants, but through a slower, less transparent process. STAT did not detail the Australian pricing or which Lilly medicines are involved, so the size of the channel shift is still unclear.

The wider context is not encouraging for anyone buying medicines.

In England, two drugs have been in shortage until at least 2027, described as among the longest shortages in NHS history, according to The Sun on 2 October. That same day, the newspaper also reported a UK warning covering six newly affected skin medicines. Earlier in the week, The Guardian reported hospitals in England were hit by shortages of common drugs including paracetamol. Birmingham Live reported the NHS had confirmed shortages of three common drugs.

Pharmacists point at the chain, not the shelves

Pharmacists told BurgasMedia on 2 October that the shortages originate in the supply chain rather than at individual dispensing counters. A 1 October Q&A with the chief executive of USP, published by PharmTech.com, urged manufacturers to act now to stop shortages. A 30 September PharmTech.com piece from CPHI Milan argued that one reliable supplier is no longer enough.

Regulators and professional bodies are being pulled into the same conversation. The Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education said on 30 September that autumn brings renewed pressures on medicines supply. PharmTech.com published a September regulatory roundup on 2 October. In the United States, Arizona's attorney general sued two pharmacy supply chain companies, according to AZ Family. A separate AZ Family report on 1 October alleged drug middlemen helped drive the opioid crisis. The two Arizona actions are distinct: one targets supply chain conduct, the other the opioid crisis.

"We do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance," Micron chief executive Sanjay Mehrotra told investors on the company's earnings call.

That quote is about memory chips, not medicines, and that is the point. The components that go into medical devices, diagnostics and pharmacy IT are subject to the same allocation squeeze as consumer electronics. Micron reported record results for the quarter to 3 September, with revenue of $54.23bn, net income of $37.7bn and an 86.8% gross margin, according to The Next Web on 2 October. Micron expects demand to exceed supply in both 2027 and 2028. About 75% of its 2027 memory output is already spoken for. Tom's Hardware reported the same earnings call on 1 October, citing a record 86.25% gross margin and a projected $61.5bn in revenue for the current quarter. It noted that NAND and DRAM shipments are expected to grow only in the low-to-mid 20s percentage range over the next two years.

Consumer prices are already moving. Raspberry Pi raised the price of its 2GB Pi 4 and Pi 5 by $12.50, taking the 2GB Pi 4 from $35 to $67.50. Samsung added $100 to most of its Galaxy S26 range, according to The Next Web. Samsung executive Kim Taewoo said HBM will take almost 30% of the industry's DRAM wafer capacity in 2027, up from 20% this year, Reuters reported.

Two supply chains, one bottleneck

Pharma has its own version of the same problem, and it is not only about chips. Europe's battery value chain has lost a quarter of the cell capacity announced since 2022 to cancellation or delay. Germany's 2035 project pipeline has halved, according to Transport & Environment analysis published by CleanTechnica on 1 October. The same analysis found non-European entities, mostly South Korean manufacturers, account for more than 72% of active battery cell manufacturing on the continent. Gotion High-tech and Volkswagen's PowerCo plan to invest about €3.22 billion ($3.67 billion) in battery and cathode projects in Spain, Slovakia and Morocco. Gotion said in a stock exchange filing reported by CnEVPost on 28 September that board approval came on 28 September, but no signed investment agreement exists and approvals are still outstanding.

Drug manufacturing is following a similar logic of reshoring and concentration. Piramal and NP2 are advancing generic cancer drug cyclophosphamide towards US manufacturing, BioPharma APAC reported on 1 October. In China, InnoCare Pharma signed a strategic research and licensing deal with Eli Lilly potentially worth up to $3.35 billion, the South China Morning Post reported on 26 September. Shanghai-listed Biwin Storage Technology is putting 4.5 billion yuan ($672 million) into the third phase of an advanced packaging and testing project in Dongguan, the SCMP reported on 23 September.

For pharmacies, the practical question is whether any of this changes what arrives on the shelf. Lilly's Australian experiment is a live test of whether manufacturers think they can reach patients without them.