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If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?
Pharma giant Novo Nordisk and telehealth company Hims & Hers announced April 29 a partnership to sell Wegovy, Novo’s GLP-1 approved to treat obesity, directly to consumers.
It’s a bit of an unlikely alliance given that Hims & Hers has sold a compounded version of semaglutide (the active ingredient in Wegovy and Novo’s Ozempic, its GLP-1 approved for Type 2 diabetes) since May 2024, and Novo has filed more than 100 lawsuits against companies doing just that.
What’s new? Starting this week, customers can access NovoCare Pharmacy, a direct-to-consumer platform the pharma company launched at the beginning of March, on the Hims & Hers website, according to a company press release.
There, patients can purchase any dose of Wegovy, which is bundled with a Hims & Hers membership plan that gives them access to “24/7 care, ongoing clinical support, and nutrition guidance” starting at $599 per month, the release stated.
Hims & Hers execs said in the release the company plans to continue offering its other weight loss products, including oral weight loss pills and nutrition kits.
The backstory. Novo has been vocal about its opposition to companies selling compounded versions of its GLP-1.
The FDA allows pharmacies to make compounded versions of brand-name drugs, which are composed of the same ingredients, when the branded drug is in shortage. But the FDA doesn’t currently approve the compounded version, which Novo argues poses risks to patient safety.
A statement on Novo Nordisk’s website says it’s “deeply concerned about companies promoting and selling compounded, non-FDA-approved, or knock-off ‘semaglutide’ and sources spreading misinformation about GLP-1s to the public.”
Another company statement (which has since been taken down) said telehealth providers may be conducting insufficient clinical evaluations before prescribing patients semaglutide, and emphasized the company “is not directly supplying semaglutide to any telehealth providers.”
Hims & Hers, for its part, faced scrutiny from health experts and lawmakers in February for a Super Bowl ad that promoted its compounded semaglutide without disclosing the side effects of the drug.
Potential win-win. Despite the friction, the partnership could be mutually beneficial.
With prescriptions for Wegovy on the decline, sales have also slowed, increasing around 15% between Q3 and Q4 2024 compared to 48% between Q2 and Q3 2024. And the company is facing increasing competition from rival Eli Lilly as the two race to bring oral GLP-1 alternatives to market.
Hims & Hers will no longer be able to sell compounded semaglutide as of May 22 after the FDA declared the drug is no longer in shortage. The company’s revenue has skyrocketed since it began selling compounded GLP-1s, from $271.9 million in 2021 to $1.5 billion in 2024.
And the two companies hinted that Wegovy is just the start of their partnership.
David Moore, Novo’s EVP of US operations, said in the press release the companies are “developing a roadmap” to combine Novo’s medications with Hims & Hers’s ability to deliver care at scale to improve chronic disease outcomes more affordably.