Belluscura increases visibility

LONDON and PLANO, Texas – Belluscura has secured a marketing agreement with the popular website GoodRx to increase direct-to-consumer sales of its X-PLOR portable oxygen concentrator. 

Santa Monica, Calif.-based GoodRx operates www.goodrx.com and a mobile app that allow users to compare drug prices and get free coupons that they can use at the pharmacy. The company, which also operates a telehealth platform, estimates it has helped Americans save $35 billion on health care and prescription drugs. 

“This is the first medical device for GoodRx, at least in the oxygen space,” said Cameron Ballentine, senior marketing manager for Belluscura.  

Here’s how the agreement works: Users who are on GoodRx searching for related information, like a COPD medication, will get a popup survey asking if they’re interested in a POC. If they complete the survey, they’re sent to a specific landing page, https://xploroxygen.com/good-rx/, with information on the X-PLOR, including its price ($1,995),  and offered a 10% discount on a retail purchase. 

First, though, users must fill out a short form with their contact information so a Belluscura customer service representative can contact them. 

“We’re gauging their actual interest,” Ballentine said. “We don’t want to get someone who’s not really interested in portable oxygen or who may have come by the website by mistake.” 

The agreement is still very much in the early stages, but Ballentine says it’s a win-win for not only Belluscura and GoodRx but also patients. 

“We’re paying a certain amount to have a presence on their website to get our name out there,” he said. “GoodRx is getting a footprint in the home care market, which is one of their goals. The patient gets a discount on an already low-priced unit.” 

The partnership isn’t surprising to providers like Woody O’Neal, vice president of Pelham, Ala.-based O2 Neal Medical. 

“I never had a problem with Inogen’s DTC model, because the broader HME market channels rejected POCs and the company, and I suppose the GoodRx model is no different,” he said. “The entire POC market has become a line of products that have little to no differentiation, so a different marketing tactic is probably needed.”