Nine former employees of Nurx, a telemedicine startup based in San Francisco, told The New York Times that the company has habitually ignored or violated state and federal laws surrounding the sale and shipment of prescription medication since its 2015 founding.
Matt Cronin, who worked in Nurx's customer service department for seven months, said he was charged with managing the company's stock of birth control pills that had bounced back in the mail, and was sometimes asked to send those returned medications to other customers. According to the Times, prescription medicine is generally required by law to be shipped only from licensed pharmacies, which are also prohibited from re-shipping returned medication.
Jessica Knox, MD, Nurx's former medical director, told the Times that company executives asked her to alter a company policy advising doctors not to prescribe certain types of birth control pills to women over the age of 35 who smoked. Not only are people without medical licenses typically barred from influencing doctors' judgments, but the policy change was also in direct contradiction to a federally mandated warning attached to the pills in question.
Others claimed the company placed a higher priority on the quantity, rather than quality, of prescriptions issued. Kathy Hall-Ramer, a former manager at Nurx, described the company's philosophy as "Hurry, hurry, hurry, and we'll deal with the consequences later." Dr. Knox added, "It was this mentality of 'Don't ask for permission — ask for forgiveness later.'"
In a statement to the Times, Nurx noted that it has recently brought on several new executives, including new CEO Varsha Rao, and changed many of its former policies and practices. "There are no excuses for mistakes made by our former leadership team," the company said.
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