Who needs reality TV these days? GLP-1 manufacturers are giving us all the drama we need.

The latest update in the GLP-1 battle came Feb. 5, when telehealth company Hims & Hers announced it’s offering a new compounded pill with the same active ingredient as Novo Nordisk’s once-a-day Wegovy GLP-1 pill. Hims is pricing its compounded weight loss treatment at $99 a month—$49 for the first month in an introductory offer—undercutting Novo’s $149–$299 per month cash price.

Novo promptly put out a statement, alleging this is “illegal mass compounding” and threatening a lawsuit. The legal action against Hims would be just another addition to the pile of 100+ suits the company has filed against compounders amid a mounting number of GLP-1 dramas.

Hims posted a statement on X dissing Novo’s threat: “This narrative is as predictable as it is outdated and false.” But just two days later on Feb. 7, the company shared a statement saying it would no longer offer the treatment.

Then on Feb. 9, Novo announced it was suing Hims & Hers, requesting that the company be permanently banned from selling compounded Novo drugs. Hims’s stock fell more than 27% following the announcement.

Grab your popcorn and settle in.—CC

No one quite knows how to glitz and glam like an advertiser looking to make a splash during the Super Bowl commercial breaks.

This year, Big Pharma wanted in on the action.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a pharmaceutical company has run a Super Bowl ad (see last year’s controversial Hims & Hers ad that lawmakers and health experts urged the FDA to pull).

But 2026 is definitely setting itself up to be the year of the GLP-1 if Sunday’s game is any indication of trends to come: Eli Lilly landed a pregame slot while Novo Nordisk went for a pricey (read: $24 million, the highest of any pharma company, per preliminary MediaRadar data) in-game spot alongside telehealths Ro, which once again featured GLP-1 brand ambassador Serena Williams, and Hims & Hers. Drugmakers Novartis and Boehringer Ingelheim also ran ads unrelated to GLP-1s.

Is it paying off? The big question is whether this strategy of pushing more TV ads is actually working out for pharma companies.

Here’s how pharma ads fared during the Super Bowl.—NO

Tech giant Amazon delved deeper into the healthcare industry on Jan. 28, announcing a new partnership with at-home testing company Reperio Health.

Now, Reperio’s users have access to Amazon’s primary care arm One Medical and can use Reperio’s screening kits, which include blood pressure, heart rate, BMI, relative fat mass, blood glucose, and complete lipid panel testing. The entire testing process takes 30 minutes to one hour, according to a release, and results are delivered “immediately” through the company’s app.

Reperio contracts with employers and health plans, then connects patients to virtual appointments on its platform, where clinicians go over results and other medical history.

With this partnership, patients can also continue their care on One Medical for treatment.

See more on the partnership here.—CM

The FDA is reducing default Phase 3 trial requirements, a move that could speed up drug development and cut costs. Here’s why the change could help biotechs—and why it won’t apply equally across all treatments.

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