The San Antonio Express-News published a nice piece on the front page of its business section today on eDrugSearch.com and another area company, Weno Healthcare.

Reports staff writer Travis Polling:

Both firms are getting good feedback and encouragement from early clients…

Cary Byrd, who launched eDrugSearch.com, is getting the traffic he says will lead to being able to sell advertising to pharmacies by January.

The site had 30,000 unique users in April, nearly doubling from March.

Users from all over the country are using the site to do price comparisons for prescription drugs that can be ordered over the Internet. Among the most popular searches at eDrugSearch.com are “acid reflux” and “cholesterol-lowering drugs.”

“We’re just trying to inform people so they can make their own best decision,” Byrd said of people shopping for pharmaceuticals online to avoid high prices in the United States.

At 19, Byrd started a concierge and delivery service for businesses in Killeen and has had the business bug ever since. He launched ePharmacies.com several years ago and charged subscribing consumers for access to information on domestic and international pharmacies.

With the new company, searching is free to consumers and the revenue eventually will come from pharmacies that advertise on the site. Site users are encouraged to review their experiences with the pharmacy, and each gets a rating of one to five stars based on that rating.

John Mack was also quoted in the piece:

“The pharmaceutical industry wants to work with reputable sites,” said Pharma Marketing News’ Mack. The online-drug-sales firms, many out of Canada, could be drawn to marketing through a site like Byrd’s if it has a reputation for keeping out fraudulent or iffy drug companies, he said.

He told a story of someone recently who signed on to an online pharmacy site under his dead cat’s name “and got a prescription for Viagra or something.”

That indicates there is still a lot of room to weed out firms that do business without a legitimate doctor’s prescription, he said.