Eli Lilly said on Wednesday it has brought on Amazon’s pharmacy unit to deliver drug prescriptions sent to its direct-to-consumer service, LillyDirect.

Lilly launched the platform in January to enable patients to obtain their migraine, diabetes and obesity drugs, including the popular weight-loss medicine Zepbound, directly from the company via delivery from online pharmacy Truepill.

The drugmaker said prescriptions sent to LillyDirect Pharmacy Solutions would now be delivered by either Amazon Pharmacy or Truepill, depending on the patient’s insurance coverage and other factors.

Lilly’s vice president of managed healthcare services, Frank Cunningham, said they planned to split the orders between the two companies. He said Lilly was “very pleased” with the number of prescriptions it had filled through LillyDirect but declined to share the number.

A Lilly spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the website has generated significant interest since the launch and that the drugmaker “looked forward to continuing to enhance LillyDirect with additional medicines, partners and service providers in the near future.”

Cunningham said the Indianapolis-based drugmaker was considering partnering with a retail pharmacy to offer a pick-up option for LillyDirect customers.

Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth told Reuters shortly after LillyDirect was launched that the pharmacy chain could be “a very natural potential partner for someone like Lilly.”

LillyDirect was launched on the back of surging demand last year for powerful weight-loss drugs including Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.

The market for obesity drugs is estimated to reach at least $100 billion by the end of the decade, as consumers flock to the new treatments that have been shown to reduce weight by as much as 20 percent.

Lilly CEO David Ricks told Reuters in January that the website would ensure that coupons that bring the cost of Zepbound down to $550 a month were applied, and would also encourage users to avoid compounded or fake versions of the medicine.

The website also connects patients to independent telehealth providers who can complement their current team of doctors or be an alternative to in-person care for certain conditions, the company has previously said.

By Patrick Wingrove; Editing by Matthew Lewis

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Swiss sneaker maker On Holding AG forecast sales growth for this year that disappointed investors, sending shares to their biggest-ever decline.

The Roger Federer-backed company also posted revenue in the last quarter of 2023 that narrowly missed analysts’ estimates.

The shares tumbled as much as 19 percent in early New York trading, the most since On’s initial public offering in September 2021. Even so, the stock is still up about 41 percent over the past 12 months, more than rivals Nike Inc., Adidas AG or Puma SE.

Investors are watching sports brands for any sign of weakness after Nike and Puma raised doubts about the strength of consumer spending. While On has become a darling of the industry with its popular line of running and tennis shoes, that momentum has also raised the stakes for the company to keep up the pace of growth or risk disappointing investors.

On expects sales to grow at least 30 percent this year to 2.25 billion Swiss francs ($2.56 billion) or more, according to a statement Tuesday. That compares with the 2.32 billion-franc average of analyst estimates. First-quarter sales may reach 495 million francs, it said, less than the 527 million-franc average estimate.

Founded just over a decade ago, On has expanded rapidly across Europe and North America thanks in part to strong uptake from an ever-growing network of wholesale partners and specialty running stores. Now, it’s taking on new partners at a slower rate while pushing for faster growth from its own direct-to-consumer business.

On said it’s experiencing a “very strong start” to 2024, both with its retail partners and its fast-growing e-commerce business. The sports apparel maker is expanding its network of company-owned stores, which now includes about a dozen locations — not counting China — with an opening in Berlin this week. Within China, On has 22 stores, up from 12 a year ago.

The company has stopped supplying products to about 200 retailers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as it seeks to increase the prestige of the brand in those markets. That’s pushed more customers to e-commerce channels, co-chief executive officer Martin Hoffmann said in an interview.

Meantime, there’s still lots of room for growth at major retailers including Foot Locker Inc., JD Sports Fashion Plc and Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., he said.

On still has only about 6 percent to 10 percent of market share for running shoes in key locations, Hoffmann said. It’s looking to increase that, while also selling more apparel designed for runners, tennis players and people working out in gyms. That should enable the company to keep growing in line with its multi-year ambitions, he said, even if some of its larger rivals resort to layoffs and pare back growth plans.

“We are a growth brand and we are gaining market share, and this is probably a bit of a different story than, maybe, defending market share,” Hoffmann said.

The Zurich-based company expects negative effects of the strong Swiss franc on its business to be more pronounced in the first half of 2024 than later in the year, it said.

On’s gross profit margin reached 60.4 percent in the fourth quarter, topping expectations. Revenue in that period jumped 19 percent in the Americas, 58 percent in Asia-Pacific and 23 percent in Europe, Middle East and Africa, it said.

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What do tomatoes, Hershey’s chocolate syrup and Edie Falco’s character on “The Sopranos” have in common?

They’ve all been cited as inspiration for beauty trends — “tomato girl” makeup, a heavily-blushed freckled face; glossy brunette “chocolate syrup” hair and the “mob wife” look, which includes sultry eyes and plenty of lip liner — that have recently taken off on TikTok.

Since the platform exploded during the pandemic, TikTok has forever changed the trend cycle, particularly in beauty. Today, cleverly named, at-times outlandish looks can quickly rise — and fall — from the centre of conversation. But while their impact may be short-lived, TikTok trends’ impact on the industry at large is enormous. Consumers can immediately start recreating trends with products they already have at home, but depending on whatever’s “in” at any given moment, different products can see a sales bump or slump. 2023′s popular “clean girl” makeup look, for example, often eschews foundation in favour of light concealer.

For beauty brands, the endless churn of TikTok trends also provides ample opportunity to engage in the cultural conversation, whether it’s through marketing on social media or selecting what products to highlight in-store. But it’s up to brands to decipher which trends are worth paying attention to.

“It’s an exciting way for people to interpret the direction that makeup is going, but in a way that’s incredibly relatable,” said Cat Quinn, executive director of trend at Mac Cosmetics.

Capitalising on The Trend Cycle

While being able to have a red-hot, viral product may be somewhat down to luck, brands with wide product assortments and flexible formulas will be at an advantage, said Cierra Sherwin, a product developer who has worked with Glossier and Bobbi Brown.

“You always want to maintain a lens of products that allow for manipulation … [things that you can] sheer out, or build up for example,” she said. “[Brands need to] create that nuance.”

That doesn’t mean trying to be all things to all consumers, and brands don’t need to attempt every single trend. Instead, Sherwin said brands need to be clear about what lane they want to play in, and not lose focus on their core products. Everyday essentials like lip liner and lip gloss, for example, are not going away, she added.

But if a trend really resonates with a brand’s core ethos, or is a natural fit for a hero product, brands should be vocal about it, said Lisa Payne, head of beauty at trends agency Stylus. That can be done by publishing social media content themed to a particular trend, but could even be employed in stores through new signage or re-merchandising.

But brands need to be aware of their own limitations — they’re not the tastemakers. Rather than working to create trends, they should be looking out for them. Once executives have identified a trend that makes sense for their label, then focus on identifying the influencers or figures who are popularising it and connect with them. A hot trend can also boost an influencer: Hailey Bieber’s ascendance to the influencer A-list went hand-in-hand with her popularisation of her “glazed donut” look.

The lightning-fast pace of TikTok can make it difficult to create new products in response to trends — by the time the product in question is on store shelves, the internet may have moved on. Instead, brands can iterate on existing items. Sherwin pointed to the example of Rhode, already known for its peptide lip treatment product, which introduced a strawberry glazed doughnut-flavoured version in collaboration with Krispy Kreme, a nod to the “glazed donut” trend Bieber helped start.

“Just getting the products into the hands of people who are going to play with these trends [makes them] more relevant,” said Payne.

Spotting Staying Power

Spotting trends early will also give beauty brands a leg up that can help in planning these responses — the sooner you notice a trend, the more quickly you can react to it. To be on the lookout, Sherwin suggests paying attention to what people are talking about on TikTok, but also what’s happening in culture at large. Quinn said she sees the mob wife trend, for example, as a pushback to more muted trends that proliferated last year.

“I think a lot of consumers feel that they’ve been doing minimalism and ‘quiet luxury’ for so long,” said Quinn. “They want makeup, and they want theatre.”

Her advice to brands? Not getting too hung up on a trend’s quirky name — instead, look at what sort of beauty looks that name represents. Mob wife, for example, is not so much about a desire to truly take style cues from the mafia, but to create a “feeling of badassery,” said Payne.

Many of these flash trends are not tied to a new technique or product, and some even overlap with one another — 2023′s “strawberry girl” and “tomato girl” are nearly identical, for instance. And even if a trend is linked to a pop culture moment, like the debut of a new TV show or film, it can evolve beyond the original reference.

Many trends are just reworks of something we’ve seen before. “Latte makeup,” for instance, a matte brown smokey eye, has cycled in and out of style since the 1990s. The more trends that share the same visual facets, the more likely those core themes will stick around.

“There’s something quite addictive for the TikTok generation to jump on something from the past and give it a new name,” said Payne.

Taking a nuanced view will also serve brands well, especially as various consumer demographics interpret trends very differently. Experts say, a wise tactic for brand leaders is to think about how a certain trend will land in various geographies or among different age groups.

Ultimately, it comes down to maintaining a product strategy that allows for both viral moments and everyday workhorses. Beyond that, brands should look for the wider meaning in these small moments.

“[Ask] what your customers are going to take from [this moment], how will they apply it to their lives?,” said Payne. “And how can brands use that to their commercial betterment?”