Nolla Derm Utah Pilot Starts at $4.99 a Month

Nolla Health on October 5, 2026 became the first U.S. company a state regulator authorized to let software issue an initial prescription, not a refill. Utah residents 18 and older can enroll in the Nolla Derm acne app for $4.99 a month, per Nolla Health's launch post.

Utah residents opt in at a discounted $4.99 a month, per Nolla's launch post. That figure is the product enrollment price. In stage one, two licensed physicians independently review and approve every AI-generated prescription before it reaches the patient.

Five-angle face scan

Utah patients download Nolla Derm, verify identity, complete informed consent, fill a short intake questionnaire, and capture a five-angle face scan. Nolla says that sequence takes about 10 to 15 minutes and produces a personalized treatment plan plus, if the software judges it appropriate, an initial prescription. STAT's Mario Aguilar, writing the same day, describes the product as assessing mild-to-moderate acne from a structured intake and skin photos, then deciding whether one of a list of low-risk drugs is appropriate. Neither Nolla nor STAT's report names the drugs on that list.

Nolla says Nolla Derm selects among pre-approved topical treatment plans using structured clinical inputs and an AI read of the face scan, with no free-text interface, so the system cannot go off script. Severe acne, pregnancy, and other conditions outside the pilot are routed to a licensed physician or in-person care instead of an AI prescription. Scripts go out by home delivery or pharmacy pickup. Daily skin scans feed later reviews after every 28 scans, which Nolla pegs at about every one to two months. Patients can message a licensed physician in the app at no extra cost. Those replies, the company says, come from a physician, not the model.

Stage one covers the first 100 patients. Two licensed physicians independently review and approve every AI-generated prescription before it reaches the patient. That stage runs at least four weeks.

Stage two covers up to 500 patients. Nolla Derm issues prescriptions directly. A physician reviews every case after the fact, at least weekly. That stage runs at least eight weeks.

Stage three has physicians review a sample of at least 10 percent of prescriptions every month, plus every escalation and every side-effect case.

Moving a stage requires safety targets Nolla lists as 95 percent agreement with physicians, zero serious adverse events, and written approval from the state. STAT notes that in later stages Nolla may be allowed to prescribe without prior human review. In the first stages of the pilot, STAT reports, the decisions of the AI will be reviewed by a licensed clinician who will sign off on prescriptions, but Nolla may eventually be allowed to prescribe drugs without this review.

Nolla built the pilot with the Utah Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy. The company says practicing physicians, dermatologists, and Utah government members reviewed it over multiple rounds. The state's authorized pilots page is the public roster for that sandbox. STAT reports that OAIP can waive regulations for companies that want to test AI products under state supervision. This is an OAIP sandbox waiver. The launch post does not claim FDA authorization.

The 96 percent figure

Nolla's headline clinical number is 96 percent. Licensed clinicians, the company says, agree with Nolla Derm's treatment recommendations in 96 percent of real-world cases. Discrepancies, it says, are minor adjustments such as topical strength rather than fights over the treatment itself. Dr. Zaid Fadul, named as overseeing physician in the launch post, put the design in those terms.

The AI isn’t making freeform decisions. It’s selecting from pre-approved protocols reviewed by physicians, and clinicians are built into every stage. That’s a standard AI in medicine should be held to.

That 96 percent is Nolla's measurement, on Nolla's real-world cases, on a mix the public post does not define. It buys the reader a company-reported match rate against clinicians. It does not buy a published protocol, a named denominator, or a national license. STAT reports that Utah, responding to critics, will require third-party audits of company claims as it expands the sandbox. The audit rule is a state answer to the credibility problem. It is not, yet, a public scorecard.

Nolla's 96 percent is company-reported, with no public denominator. The 95 percent agreement target plus zero serious adverse events is the gate that controls whether dual review ever goes away.

Luis Wenus, co-founder and CEO, tied the launch to access rather than to that agreement rate. The launch post quotes him on high quality care at an affordable cost as the standard Nolla Derm is setting. Nolla also supplies Utah access figures in the same post: roughly 100,000 people with active acne at a time, 10 percent ever seeing a dermatologist, a 61-day average wait nearly double the national median, 11 counties with no dermatologist, and visits up to $300. Nationally, Nolla says more than 80 percent of U.S. counties are healthcare deserts affecting over 120 million people. Those numbers are Nolla's. The STAT excerpt does not independently tabulate them.

Acne is the first condition because Nolla calls it well understood and low risk, and because the picker is limited to pre-approved topical plans. Those constraints sit behind the 96 percent figure Nolla posts, and the task mix is still unpublished in detail.

Utah adult enrollment

The AI-issued initial prescription is gated to Utah residents 18 and over who opt into the $4.99 monthly pilot. People outside Utah can still use the app under clinician guidance. Nolla says that version has been downloaded by more than 175,000 people across 44 states. That is a broader skin-health product, not the Utah prescribing authority. Conflating the two download numbers with the 100-patient first stage is a category error the launch post itself invites if you stop at the headline.

STAT says Nolla last year announced a $4.5 million raise from investors including General Catalyst, and that the company aspires to direct treatment for a host of conditions using AI. Acne is the beachhead. Other conditions are an aspiration in that reporting, not an authorization in the Utah pilot. Bloomberg also covered the launch the same day. The research brief on this item notes hundreds of thousands of views on Wenus's announcement post, including a count of about 277,000. Views measure attention. They do not measure agreement with physicians.

Nolla's own site lists a September 1, 2025 U.S. debut for its AI-powered skin health platform, separate from the Utah prescribing pilot. The 96 percent agreement rate has no public case count. The formulary the model may select from has not been named. Utah says company claims will face third-party audits. Those audit results are not out.