The result of all this is that, to some people, my startup and I are not part of their club.  That’s OK, though.  We’re winning anyway.

My company, eDrugSearch.com, is a vertical search engine offering comparison shopping services; our closest competitor is a publicly traded company called HealthPricer.  The difference is, we focus solely on prescription drugs – because we know it can be difficult for consumers to purchase affordable medications safely online.  We created eDrugSearch.com to give these consumers a safe haven, where they know they won’t be ripped off, or worse.

The eDrugSearch.com Community

Most of our customers are among the 65 million Americans who don’t have prescription drug insurance.   I know this because they share their concerns with me every day, in e-mails and now in the eDrugSearch.com Community forum.

We started the eDrugSearch.com Community, a social network, in February, and it already has had a dramatic impact on traffic and time spent per visitor on the site.  The result has been an estimated $435,000 in sales for eDrugSearch.com member pharmacies in March alone, propelling our pharmacies’ overall revenues to more than $2 million since our launch last year.

The eDrugSearch.com Community enables site visitors to rate and review drugs and pharmacies ; monitor the latest FDA updates, price changes and other news related to their current drug regimens;  and share experiences with others taking the same drugs or who have similar health conditions.

Before we launched our social network, most of our visitors bought some – but not all – of their prescription drugs through our site. Thanks to the community, we’re beginning to form much stronger and more personal relationships with these customers.  The site is ‘stickier’ now.

Why a Social Network for Prescription Drug Consumers?

An estimated 150 million Americans sought health-related content and services on the Internet in 2007. According to a recent Harris poll, 71 percent of U.S. adults use the Web to search for health information — a number that continues to rise.  Millions of consumers are also purchasing prescriptions drugs, medical equipment, and other supplies online.

Prescription drug consumers, in particular, have shown significant interest in blogs, social networks and specialized search.  They relish the opportunity to share their experiences, and often their frustrations, with one another.

In short, consumers are turning to one another, rather than relying exclusively on DTC advertising and rushed doctor’s appointments, to learn about prescription drugs.  We thought this was a sufficient rationale for starting a niche Health 2.0 community.  And so far, we’re clearly being proven right.

eDrugSearch.com Community Features

When you join eDrugSearch.com, you gain access to a number of tools and resources that can help you to become a better healthcare consumer.  For example, you can:

Oh, sure – we may never be a Silicon Valley darling.  But we’ve been fortunate to have been discovered by our fellow pharmaceutical industry bloggers and Health 2.0 bloggers. We were also mentioned recently in the Wall Street Journal for our creation of the Healthcare 100 blog ranking system (www.healthcare100.com), and we were a sponsor of the recent Health 2.0 conference in San Diego.

So yes, successful startups can come from South Texas – or anywhere, for that matter.  We hope to help light the path for others like us.

We also welcome feedback on our site from the Health 2.0 community and anyone else interested in the future of healthcare in the United States.  We want to be an example of Health 2.0 making a real difference in people’s lives, by helping them to learn, to share — and to save a little money along the way.  You can reach me directly at carybyrd@edrugsearch.com.