Tailor Made Compounding in Nicholasville, founded in 2015, has the stated mission to “positively disrupt medicine using innovative technologies through education and partnership.” So far, that mission is on track. Tailor Made works with a growing network of doctors and in-house pharmacists and lab technicians to make customized medicines and treatments that are then shipped directly to patients. Tailor Made placed 21st on Inc. Magazine’s 2019 list of 5,000 fastest growing companies in the U.S. The company had a growth rate of 8,327 percent over the past year, and revenues of $10.2 million. The company has also opened locations in Dubai and Australia.
Tailor Made co-founder and CEO Jeremy Delk
On the ground floor of Tailor Made’s main office building in Nicholasville, a handful of the approximately 100 employees at that location sit at call stations handling orders and inquiries about products and services. Large white boards mounted on the wall list various medicines, along with numbers that track orders and inventory. Upstairs and to the right is a glass wall with a pristine laboratory behind it. In the far corner, through more glass, are the executive offices of Tailor Made co-founder and CEO Jeremy Delk and co-founder and VP Ryan Smith.
Delk has a background in finance and is the former owner of MediVet, a Central Kentucky company that uses cutting-edge medical techniques, including stem cells, in the treatment of animals. Smith earned his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Transylvania University, during which time he did summer internships working with recombinant protein synthesis and small scale peptide synthesis. After completing two years at the University of Kentucky Medical School, he left to join Delk in founding Tailor Made.
Delk explains that Tailor Made is a compounding pharmacy working in compliance with the United States Pharmacopeia regulations that are overseen by the FDA, assuring that medicines are made to the highest standards of purity and efficacy. States also regulate compounding pharmacies, and Delk says Tailor Made is in full compliance with the strictest state standards as set by California. All of Tailor Made’s medicines require doctors’ prescriptions.
“Compounding pharmacies were created to give patients and physicians more options,” said Smith. “We’ve taken that premise and multiplied it tenfold. Education is fundamental to what we do, making sure that everything we do is buttoned up with clinical research. We want to be able to present to doctors and say, ‘this is another tool for you to give the patient the best care possible.’”
Tailor Made makes an array of drugs, including small molecule drugs, hormones, B-12 injections, thyroid medications and more. It is the first compounding pharmacy in the country to make peptides available. The company lists more than 40 peptides in its current catalog, with a fact sheet for each one giving descriptions, protocols and clinical research.
“Right now, only 8 percent of FDA-approved drugs are peptides,” said Smith. “They expect that to go up by 10 to 20 percent over the next 10 years. There’s going to be a flurry of approved peptides, particularly in the areas of cardiovascular disease, cancer and metabolic disease.”
Numerous peptides in the Tailor Made catalog are widely used in health care around the world, but in the U.S. they have yet to gain FDA approval. Since peptides occur naturally, they cannot be patented. There is also a class of drugs known as “orphan drugs” that treat conditions or diseases that are not so widespread that they create huge markets. Development of these drugs is buoyed by the Orphan Drug Act of 1983. And there are drugs that may be viewed as having effects that optimize life experience and health, such as anti-aging and that promote weight loss. Taylor Made is bringing such drugs to market.
Delk pointed out that despite its growth, Tailor Made is still considered a small business. “We’re filling a very small need,” he said. “We’re not selling billions of dollars of pharmaceuticals every year. We’re selling millions of dollars.”
The company now has a nationwide network of about 4,000 subscribing doctors, with about 35 to 40 new doctors joining the network each week, Smith said, all without any outbound sales or advertising. Smith has also made numerous appearances on podcasts and YouTube videos reaching niche communities of patients seeking new therapies. He says Tailor Made typically fields about 50 inquiries a day from patients wanting to find doctors who work with Tailor Made medicines. The company provides these patients with contact information for doctors in their areas.
“We have [as customers] a lot of big celebrities, high worth individuals and big markets in New York, L.A., and Miami,” said Smith. “But this isn’t just for wealthy people. Health care should be for everyone.”