Today marks one year since I launched Drugstore Cowboy.
Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time writing about the ugliest parts of American healthcare.
PBMs siphoning money out of the system.
Big Pharma shoving propaganda down your throat.
Insurance companies denying lifesaving medications.
Compounding loopholes.
Drug pricing games.
Corporate greed.
Political theater.
Sometimes people ask me why I stay so obsessed with this industry when so much of it feels broken beyond repair.
The answer is simple:
Because I still believe medicine is one of the most extraordinary things human beings do.
And every once in a while, a story comes along that reminds me why.
A few days ago, Eli Lilly released early data on an experimental treatment called VERVE-102. The therapy reduced LDL cholesterol levels by up to 62% in patients during an early clinical trial.
That’s impressive enough on its own.
But the part that blew me away was how it works.
This isn’t just another pill or injection.
VERVE-102 is a one-time treatment that works by editing DNA itself. Specifically, it changes a single letter in the DNA inside a patient’s liver cells in order to permanently disrupt a gene tied to cholesterol production.
One simple intravenous infusion.
One genetic edit.
Potentially permanent results.
I know we live in an era where it takes a lot to shock people. We’ve normalized Artificial Intelligence, self-driving cars, and the New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals (!). But I still think it’s worth pausing for a second and appreciating how insane this sounds.
We are talking about medicine moving beyond “manage the disease” and toward “rewrite the underlying code.”
That feels less like traditional healthcare and more like science fiction.
And honestly, I think stories like this have gotten drowned out recently because the entire pharmaceutical conversation has revolved around GLP-1s for the past few years.
GLP-1s became so culturally dominant that we all lost sight of something important:
Drug companies are working on hundreds of other moonshots in the background at the exact same time.
Most will fail.
But a select few will change the world.
Five years ago, almost nobody outside endocrinology circles had ever heard the term “GLP-1.” Now those drugs are reshaping obesity treatment, healthcare spending, food culture, insurance economics, beauty standards, and even global trade.
Which means we should probably stay humble about our ability to predict what comes next.
Somewhere in a lab right now, there is almost certainly another therapy being worked on that sounds obscure and experimental today but will completely alter life as we know it tomorrow.
Maybe it’s gene editing.
Maybe it’s personalized cancer vaccines.
Maybe it’s something none of us have even thought of yet.
That uncertainty is part of what makes science exciting.
For most of modern history, medicine has largely been about maintenance.
Take this pill every day.
Get this injection every month.
Manage this condition forever.
Gene editing introduces a radically different possibility.
What if some diseases eventually become one-time interventions instead of lifelong burdens?
That doesn’t mean we’re magically curing everything next year. VERVE-102 is still early-stage research involving only a small number of patients in a Phase 1 trial. There are enormous safety questions surrounding gene editing, and there absolutely should be. Permanently altering DNA is not something society should approach casually.
But still.
The fact that we are even having this conversation is incredible.
For all the criticism I direct toward the healthcare system every week, I never want to lose sight of the reason I care about it so much in the first place.
Science matters.
Medicine matters.
And human beings are capable of astonishing things when we decide to solve problems together.
The business of healthcare often makes me cynical.
The science rarely does.
One year into Drugstore Cowboy, that optimism is still the thing driving me.
I’m as cynical as they come about insurance companies, PBMs, and healthcare bureaucracy.
But I will always be optimistic about people.
The Drugstore Cowboy mission statement has not changed since day one. I believe that if we all knew a little bit more about how healthcare works in America, we’d have a real shot at making it better for everyone. And that’s because of the power of the people.
We can all use a bit of hope. I often find it in the people working to advance medicine for all of us. And I find it in all of you who read this every week hoping to learn just a little bit more to make things better.
Thank you for reading.
Thank you for sharing.
And thank you for helping me feel a bit of optimism every week when I sit down to write.
Always remember: Hope is the most powerful drug of all.
Giddy up!!!
Alec Wade Ginsberg, PharmD, RPh
4th-Gen Pharmacist | Owner & COO, C.O. Bigelow
Founder, Drugstore Cowboy
