Hubble and Direct-To-Consumer Companies

After the successes of Warby Parker and Dollar Shave Club, a whole new crop of direct-to-consumer startups sprang to life. Every aspiring founder started thinking about what other home staples could be bought cheaply and sold directly to the homes of consumers - Soap? Suitcases? Pots and pans? What about in the bathroom cabinet? Toothbrushes?

For what it’s worth, these companies have done relatively well. Turns out that cutting the costs of retail locations and vendor markups (theoretically) mean better prices for consumers. However, the DTC (direct-to-consumer) movement kept going further — What about your prescriptions?

It’s a valid thought. The healthcare industry is notoriously opaque and +$1T behemoth and any startup that can even achieve a miniscule amount of market share means a big outcome. Founders started thinking about how prescriptions and other medications could also be sold faster, cheaper, and more conveniently. Shortly after Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Unilever for $1B in cash, a former investor and another former employee of Harry’s (a Dollar Shave Club competitor) founded Hubble. The idea was simple: Contact lenses are expensive. They could run the same playbook as the others and [theoretically] consumers should be better off.

Unfortunately, contact lenses aren’t razors. Contact lenses are medical devices… Medical devices that sit on your eye. And for people like me, they sit on my eye from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed (which I should note is also not healthy and far over the recommended amount of daily wear). Fortunately for us, medical devices have to undergo a fairly rigorous approval process through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before being approved for consumer usage. Contacts are no exception. However, there’s an issue when the material that Hubble’s lenses are made of, Methafilcon A, were originally approved in 1986 and have largely been discontinued/discarded for newer materials.

The main specification of importance is Dk, a measure of the oxygen permeability of the lens, allowing oxygen to reach the eyes even with the lenses on. The Acuvue Oasys I wear has a Dk value of 107.4. The American Optometric Association generally recommends lenses over 60, and even acknowledges:

An increase in complications is especially likely for patients wearing CLs made of materials having low, medium, and even what was formerly considered high oxygen permeability (less than approximately 35 Fatt Dk units).

So what is Hubble’s Dk value?

A whopping 21. And even that is better than the last time I checked. Also, let’s not forget the fact they were found to be shipping lenses without verifying prescriptions.

So when startups are pivoting healthcare services/devices into a DTC model, this concerns me. These are real medical ailments with real bodily consequences. There’s DirectSmileClub that is offering an Invisalign-alternative without any actual orthodontist-oversight, Hims and Roman offering DTC generic-Viagra, and any number of skincare microbrands. If there’s any amount of similar cost-cutting going on, many consumers (especially budget-conscious ones) will actually be hurt. And that’s never a good thing.