Website Lets Buyers, Sellers Share Drug Prices Online

StreetRx was featured on CBS Boston’s evening news last night in a story that highlighted how and why we track street prices of prescription drugs. Reporter Jim Armstrong described how the site was used to gather and share information, and how various members of the community benefit from a tool that sheds light on an otherwise opaque black market. Epidemico co-founder Clark Freifeld described how a combination of intuitive interfaces and crowdsourced feedback help us to learn about the economics of diverted pharmaceuticals, and Analyst Michael Gilbert discussed the value of direct and anonymous engagement with people who buy and sell those drugs on the street. 

The story also featured interviews with Dr. J. David Haddox of Purdue Pharmaceuticals, who shared how StreetRx data helped his company to monitor the effectiveness of reformulating OxyContin to make it less desirable for non-medical use, and Dr. Margie Skeer of Tufts University, who sees promise in StreetRx as a tool for engaging people who use drugs in epidemiological research. Clark offered a great summary of StreetRx’s role and value, saying that our aim is, “to collect information about something that we know goes on and that’s really not well-understood.”