Strive offers ‘right place, right time medications’

GILBERT, Ariz. – Strive Compounding Pharmacy’s recent purchase of a new facility in St. Louis is the company's response to a growing demand for personalized medicines, says Zach Shurtleff. 

The 50,000-square-foot facility will bring Strive’s pharmaceutical compounding, warehouse and custom fulfillment space all under one roof, allowing the provider to offer its telehealth and other clinical partners the benefit of scale though a closed-door pharmacy model, says Shurtleff, vice president and head of marketing. 

“You have a lot of really great telehealth companies that are serving lots of patients but don’t have that competitive edge,” he said. “They can’t compete with vertically integrated companies that have their own pharmacy. The plan is to offer white labeling and rapid service, rapid turnaround and (level the playing field).” 

Strive has locations across the country and is licensed in nearly all 50 states, offering GLP-1 weight loss and other drugs. 

Offering alternatives is the reason why a pharmaceutical sales rep and a pharmacist who saw a “mismatch” between prescribed medications and the need for other medications to treat side effects launched Strive in 2018. Compounding allows pharmacists to add, for example, B12 to medications and to step in when there is a shortage of medications. 

“These aren’t copycat medications,” Shurtleff said. 

Strive is well positioned for growth as Americans take a more proactive role in health and wellness, driven in part by the exploding popularity of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, says Shurtleff.  

“Americans now consider wellness to be a top priority, and compounding is the pharmaceutical piece of that broader health revolution,” he said. “People are looking for the new alternative, and Strive happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right medications that give people that option to take control of more of what they put in their body.”