Pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk is teaming up with direct-to-consumer telehealth firm Hims & Hers to supply discounted entry to Wegovy, a GLP-1 manufactured by Novo Nordisk, the businesses introduced on Tuesday.
Hims & Hers gives remedies for weight, nervousness, sexual well being and different situations. By means of the partnership, shoppers can now entry NovoCare Pharmacy, Novo Nordisk’s direct-to-consumer supply choice, instantly via the Hims & Hers platform. Beginning at $599 a month, shoppers could be prescribed Wegovy and obtain a Hims & Hers membership. The latter consists of 24/7 care, scientific assist and vitamin steering.
Earlier than the partnership, the price of Wegovy on the Hims & Hers platform was $1,999 a month. The $599 value can also be vastly decrease than the opposite GLP-1s supplied on Hims & Hers: it gives Ozempic for $1,799 a month, Mounjaro for $1,899 a month and Zepbound for $1,899 a month.
This can be a long-term partnership between Hims & Hers and Novo Nordisk, and the businesses may also create a “roadmap that mixes Novo Nordisk’s revolutionary remedies with Hims & Hers’ potential to scale entry to high quality care,” the announcement acknowledged however didn’t present further element.
“Collectively, we’re going to carry extra care choices to extra People and take a primary step in the direction of proving what entry to care ought to and might seem like within the U.S.,” mentioned Andrew Dudum, CEO and founding father of Hims & Hers, in a video posted on X.
The truth that the 2 are partnering is notable because it comes shortly after a feud between the businesses over Hims & Hers’ Tremendous Bowl advert that featured the telehealth firm’s compounded GLP-1s. These are custom-made by compounding pharmacies and embrace the identical lively ingredient present in branded GLP-1s like Wegovy (semaglutide) and are less expensive than branded variations. And it wasn’t simply Hims & Hers providing compounded GLP-1s. So had been Ro, WeightWatchers and different telehealth corporations.
In response to the Hims & Hers business, Novo Nordisk put out a print advert within the New York Occasions and USA In the present day stating, “Do you actually know what you’re injecting into your physique?” The corporate argued that compounded GLP-1s are usually not FDA-approved and are usually not confirmed to be protected.
Compounded medication could be prescribed when there’s a scarcity of an FDA-approved drug, or if the FDA-approved drug shouldn’t be applicable for a affected person, resembling within the case of an allergy. Though there had been a scarcity of semaglutide on the time of the Tremendous Bowl advert, the FDA has since acknowledged that the scarcity has been resolved, slowing down the prescribing of compounded GLP-1s.
Regardless of the partnership with Hims & Hers, a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk acknowledged that the corporate’s place on compounded semaglutide stays unchanged. The corporate additionally just lately secured a court docket win in opposition to compounders, upholding the FDA’s willpower that the semaglutide injectable scarcity has been resolved.
“We’ll proceed to aggressively problem the unlawful use of illicit [active pharmaceutical ingredient] by any group who engages in such exercise,” mentioned Jamie Bennett, the spokesperson, in an electronic mail. “Making Wegovy accessible by way of telehealth channels, with its clinically examined weight reduction in its premium pen supply system, is a vital step ahead in permitting sufferers to obtain care in the way in which they select whereas serving to them obtain their weight reduction objectives with an genuine FDA-approved medication.”
It’s additionally value noting that Novo Nordisk isn’t simply partnering with Hims & Hers to supply discounted GLP-1s. It’s additionally working with different telehealth corporations Ro and LifeMD.
Photograph by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Common Photos Group by way of Getty Photos
