Ellen Pompeo on mission-driven medicine and life after ‘Grey’s Anatomy’
More than three decades after “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV” became household parlance via a 1980s Vicks ad, Ellen Pompeo, who recently announced she will depart ABC’s long-running mega-hit Grey’s Anatomy after 19 seasons of playing Dr. Meredith Grey, is setting out to be more than just a life-imitates-art healthcare spokesperson. As assiduous on-screen as off, the 53-year-old actor is using her gray matter to disrupt the $30 billion medication market with the launch of Betr Remedies, a socially-conscious, over-the-counter medicine brand.
“It is super challenging what we’re doing—we’re taking on the majors,” Pompeo tells Fast Company. “We’re trying to build a company with a heart, that doesn’t feel like a big, giant, cold corporation that is only in it for profit and doesn’t actually care.”
Cofounded with Jen Hoffman, a chemical engineer-turned-pharmaceutical executive turned medical equity activist, and Livio Bisterzo, founder of CPG holding company Green Park Brands, Betr Remedies aims to cut through noise in the OTC meds space with streamlined, straightforward, FDA-approved products that treat allergies, digestive health, and cold and flu, as well as provide supplements to aid immunity and hydration. And while the lively and relatable design-forward packaging has attention-grabbing shelf appeal, it’s the company’s charitable arm that sets it apart from the rest.
According to national estimates, while one in four people can’t afford necessary medications, billions of dollars of drugs are destroyed or sent to landfills each year. Collaborating with SIRUM—a Stanford-incubated national nonprofit that redistributes unused medications through charitable pharmacies in underserved communities—Betr Remedies has implemented an impactful buy-one, give-one model similar to Tom’s, Bombas, and Warby Parker. As of September, Betr Remedies has already facilitated the donation of 75,302 prescription medications, resulting in an estimated patient savings of over $3.38 million.
“This is about shaking up an industry and people demanding that things be fairer because corporate greed and irresponsibility is unchecked and that’s not okay,” says Pompeo, who along with her team have set a goal for Betr Remedies team to donate 20 million prescriptions by 2026, covering almost $1 billion in prescription costs for those who can’t afford it.
After filming more than 400 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, Pompeo will retire her TV stethoscope in February. But she has only just scrubbed in to get started on her off-screen mission to revolutionize the world of OTC and prescription medicine. The actor and entrepreneur chats with Fast Company about how her fans ultimately inspired her new venture, the necessity of charitable pharmacies, her unlikely childhood straight out of a Scorsese mob film, and life beyond Meredith Grey.
Many actors are going into the beauty, alcohol, and beverage industries. What led you to land on something medical, rather than something “sexier”?
I had to listen to my inner compass. People come up to me and tell me about the best or worst moments of their life and tell me hospital stories, whether good or bad. The truth is many people have terrible healthcare experiences for a million different reasons.
How has playing a doctor on television altered your perspective on the healthcare system?
I’ve become super aware of how broken it is, leading me to question how I want to use my platform. I have a responsibility, because people do want to share their stories with me. I’m a mother; I have three kids. I want to show that I care about people and, honestly, healthcare workers. This isn’t directly attached to the mission, but you’ve got these giant drug companies making this medication, and who administers it? Nurses are the essential cogs in the wheel at a hospital, and they get treated the worst.
What have you learned from creating Betr Remedies that has shocked and surprised you?
The irony in the inequities and prescription medication is that there are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of prescription medications that are just sitting on the shelves of pharmacies across the country that will be discarded before people who need them and can’t afford them can access them. All that medication that pharmacies can’t use because it’s expired goes straight into the landfill, and our dirt and our water or it’s incinerated and goes into the air. It is infuriating on so many levels.
Betr Remedies is mission-driven medicine. How are you setting out to amplify and disrupt such an antiquated system?
Many people can’t afford prescription medication because their insurance doesn’t cover it, or they have a crazy deductible. This country also has pharmacy deserts the same way there are food deserts if you live in a rural part of this country. Betr Remedies is a one-for-one model. For every medication we sell, we donate a prescription medication. We work with this remarkable woman named Kiah Williams, who went to Stanford and cofounded a program called SIRUM with an initiative of charitable pharmacies. She reaches out and asks pharmacies and healthcare facilities to send her medication before it expires.
It must feel like peeling back an onion trying to figure out and identify the entire house of cards this convoluted industry is built on.
It’s a monolith of a wall that we’re up against. Pharmaceutical companies and our competitors aren’t giving people access to free medication because they want you to pay for it, and they want to mark it up and keep making it impossible to get your hands on it. It’s a purely for-profit model. There’s no corporate responsibility. It’s frustrating because they have the money to start programs and charitable pharmacies and to fund additional healthcare support for families who can’t afford it, and they choose not to.
What message do you hope will most resonate with consumers?
There are many instances in this country and our lives where we feel completely powerless, and healthcare is certainly where people think that way. You’re not a doctor, you don’t know what they’re talking about, and you feel you should trust whatever they tell you to do or the advice they give. We have this innate thing where we just automatically follow what they tell us to do because we assume they know. Doctors are not going to change the system that is so embedded.
We can also complain about corporate greed all we want, but at the end of the day, we can make small choices to address it. We all have to stay awake. We have a personal power of choice as consumers to consciously support certain companies and buy products that are trying to change systems to make the world a slightly better place and make this area of healthcare a little more equitable. Mark Cuban has done a lot of press about his transparent pharmacy, which is a brilliant idea also. He doesn’t need the money but wants to try to make a right in a wrong system, and Betr Remedies has a similar goal.
Is it a struggle to retrain an entire consumer audience to choose something new when these established brands are ingrained in their minds?
We make our products at the same factory that produces all the other brand names. These companies have much more money for branding and advertising and have pounded into everybody’s brain, “when I’m sick, this is what I take.” Our biggest challenge is getting people to change their minds and try a new brand with the same active ingredients.
I had a great conversation with Khloe Kardashian. Those girls have started a lot of brands, obviously, and have a lot of experience building successful businesses. Getting people to ingest something new is easier if it’s alcohol. People have their favorite thing that they’re going to eat or swallow, but anyone will buy a new lip gloss for $25 or try a new pair of jeans. It’s much harder to want relief from a headache and go for something new at that moment. We’re in a challenging category, but can make a real difference.
We often have a 1950s mentality about speaking openly about health-related topics. Can Betr Remedies help create a space that de-stigmatizes these conversations?
We have to try at least, and maybe if it isn’t us, it’ll be the next company, but some good will come out of starting the conversation and making people feel less embarrassed. Who wants to talk about the fact that they can’t afford diabetes medication?
We know we have to personalize. These corporations don’t actually care about people. That’s precisely what’s wrong with them. The system perpetuates itself and keeps America sick. Being sick is a big business, and they don’t want you to be well. There’s no money in well people.
The whole ethos of our company is that we are trying to show people we care, and we know how scary it is. I had a major surgery four or five years ago, which was really vulnerable. We have set out to make people themselves the branding of this company—individual stories matter. You should matter.
You have long been an outspoken advocate for equality and equal pay in Hollywood, and your salary—of around $20 million a year—is widely known. Where does your mindset for business and financial savvy stem from?
It comes from my youth. I was brought up in a working-class Boston neighborhood with many Irish and Italian gangsters. I never knew what they did, but I saw how much power the people with more money had, which left a lasting impression on me. Of course, as a kid, I didn’t know that they were probably pretty bad guys, but I saw their influence.
My mother died when I was young, leaving me feeling vulnerable and powerless.
They seemed like mythical figures who walked around in these beautiful overcoats and these hats and seemed to have whatever they needed, and people would do whatever they said. I thought I could somehow get out of my pain or this situation or have some sort of power and freedom with money. I turned 53 last week, and I’ve had time to reflect that I kind of grew up like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. I was a bit enamored by these guys with so much charisma and power. It left an impression on me.
Your final episode as a full-time Grey’s Anatomy cast member airs February 23. What are you most looking forward to as you head into this next chapter?
Everything! I’m excited to be able to try new things and shake up my routine a lot. I’m starting a project with Hulu. It’s a fascinating story inspired by actual events about parenthood and what it means to be a mother.
Grey’s Anatomy has been an amazing part of my life that I’m so grateful for. I will still be involved and do the voiceover, and appear here and there, but I will have much more freedom to try new things. From a business perspective, it’s incredible to have had a front-row seat and work with some pretty remarkable women leading the show. It’s been wonderful, but I need to mix it up now. You know, sometimes you have to do a different crossword puzzle—you can’t only do The New York Times crossword puzzle.
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