William Simpson
Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical startup Hims & Hers Health he said is selling injectable weight loss drugs with GLP-1 at a fraction of the cost of brand competitors like Wegovy and Ozempic. Following the announcement, shares of the telehealth company soared more than 30% on Monday.
Hims & Hers will provide patients with GLP-1 compounded medications that start at $199 per month, or about 85% less than brand-name versions like Ozempic and Wegovy. Injectables use the same active ingredients as the brand-name versions, which are currently in lack of supply in some doses.
Hims & Hers shares rose $4.21, or 29%, to $18.79 in afternoon trading Monday.
GLP-1 medications, which stands for glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists, help people feel fuller and less hungry, aiding their weight loss efforts. But brand-name versions made by a handful of pharmaceutical companies can be expensive, with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy costing about $1,350 a month, or more than $16,000 a year without insurance, according to BomRx.
Hims & Hers Health’s can also beat competitors on another important metric: availability. The startup said its injectable drug GLP-1, manufactured in partnership with a compounded injectable drug manufacturer, will have “consistent” availability.
The company added that it will also sell branded versions of GLP-1 drugs once supply recovers.
“We leverage our size and scale to ensure access to one of the highest quality supplies of compounded GLP-1 injections available today,” Hims & Hers Health CEO and co-founder Andrew Dudum said in a statement Monday. . “We are passing this access and value on to our customers, who deserve the highest standard of safety and clinical efficacy to achieve their goals, and we are doing it in a safe and affordable way that others cannot provide.”
Customers will need a prescription from their doctor, based on what is “medically appropriate and necessary for each patient,” the company said.
The company is seizing an opportunity to profit by tapping into Americans’ desire to lose weight. It already has a weight loss program that is on track to generate more than $100 million in revenue by 2025, with the program selling oral weight loss medications for about $79 per month.
Compounded medicines are made by pharmacists to tailor a medicine to a patient or if some medicines are out of stock. Certainly, the Food and Drug Administration warn that patients should not use compounded medications when approved medications are available to patients.
The agency does not analyze the safety of medications compounded with GLP-1 and said it has received “reports of adverse events” from patients who used medications compounded with semaglutide.
Some consumers have turned to compounded versions of the drugs as demand for brand-name drugs like Eli Lilly’s Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro, dubbed “miracle drugs” by weight-loss users, increases. rises and increases supply.
