Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical startup Hims & Hers Well being stated it’s promoting injectable GLP-1 weight reduction medicine for a fraction of the price of brand-name rivals akin to Wegovy and Ozempic. Following the announcement, shares of the telehealth firm soared greater than 30% Monday.
Hims & Hers will present sufferers with compounded GLP-1 medicine that begin at $199 a month, or about 85% lower than brand-name variations like Ozempic and Wegovy. The injectables use the identical lively components because the branded variations, which presently are in quick provide in some doses.
Shares of Hims & Hers soared $4.21, or 29%, to $18.79 in Monday afternoon buying and selling.
GLP-1 medicine, which stands for glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists, assist folks really feel fuller and fewer hungry, aiding their efforts to shed weight. However the brand-name variations made by a handful of pharmaceutical firms may be expensive, with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy costing about $1,350 a month, or greater than $16,00 a 12 months, with out insurance coverage, in response to GoodRx.
Hims & Hers Well being’s may beat out rivals on one other key metric: availability. The startup stated its GLP-1 injectable drug, which is made in partnership with a producer of compounded injectable medicines, may have “constant” availability.
The corporate added that it’ll additionally promote brand-name variations of GLP-1 medicine, as soon as provide rebounds.
“We have leveraged our dimension and scale to safe entry to one of many highest-quality provides of compounded GLP-1 injections out there right this moment,” Hims & Hers Well being CEO and co-founder Andrew Dudum stated in a press release Monday. “We’re passing that entry and worth alongside to our clients, who deserve the very best normal of medical security and efficacy to satisfy their objectives, and we’re doing it in a protected, inexpensive approach that others cannot ship.”
Prospects will want a prescription from their medical supplier, based mostly on what’s “medically applicable and needed for every affected person,” the corporate stated.
The corporate is tapping a chance to revenue by specializing in Individuals’ want to slim down. It already has an current weight-loss program that’s on monitor to usher in greater than $100 million in income by 2025, with this system promoting oral weight-loss medicines for about $79 per thirty days.
Compounded medicine are made by pharmacists to tailor a medicine to a affected person or if some medicine are in brief provide. To make certain, the Meals and Drug Administration warns that sufferers shouldn’t use compounded medicine when accredited medicine can be found to sufferers.
The company doesn’t assessment compounded GLP-1 medicines for security, and stated it has obtained “hostile occasion reviews” from sufferers who’ve used compounded semaglutide medicines.
Some customers have turned to compounded variations of the medicines as demand for model title medicine like Wegovy, Ozempic and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, dubbed “miracle medicine” by customers who’ve slimmed down, soars and strains provide.
