Why a $1.7 billion digital-health upstart is sitting out the Ozempic craze for now

• By the end of the year, Hims & Hers intends to launch a weight-loss program.
• CEO Andrew Dudum stated that the digital-health company would not prescribe popular drugs such as Wegovy.
• He stated that Hims & Hers is learning from the struggles of its competitors and intends to focus on generic medications.

When Hims & Hers launches its new weight-loss program, the digital-health company will not be participating in the Olympic craze, according to its CEO, Andrew Dudum.

While expensive drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy have exploded in popularity this year due to their potential to help people lose weight, Hims & Hers intends to offer less expensive generic medications for weight loss, at least initially.

Dudum stated during the company’s third-quarter earnings call in November that the $1.7 billion digital-health company, which sells products like hair-loss treatments and erectile-dysfunction pills online, wants to start with a “very safe, mass-market, well-studied approach” to weight care.

Dudum told Business Insider in November that there was “no question” that Hims & Hers would eventually offer GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy through its platform. However, he stated that the company would do so once issues such as widespread insurance denials and drug shortages were resolved.

“You can see this in the peer set of everybody that I think tried to move quick on this, and maybe were a little bit more hasty and a little bit less rigorous than they should have been — they’re having to shut down their offerings almost entirely,” Dudum said in a statement.

A number of digital-health startups have jumped on the Olympic bandwagon, with varying degrees of success. This year, Ro’s weight-loss program fueled the startup’s rapid growth, but some patients encountered insurance denials and communication delays with Ro. After struggling to get patients access to the drugs, Calibrate, which aimed to provide obesity drugs to people online alongside coaching, sold itself to a private-equity firm in October for $20 million.

Dudum expressed reservations about prescribing GLP-1 agonists in April, citing a lack of long-term data, high prices without consistent insurance coverage, and drug shortages. These problems have mostly persisted.

“We see it as a great opportunity, too,” he told Business Insider in November. “It’s just being a little bit more methodical in how we approach it.”

During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Dudum stated that Hims & Hers anticipated weight management to be “an extraordinarily valuable category.”

In addition to launching its weight-loss program next year, the company intends to expand its new AI engine, which it has been beta testing in psychiatric patients. Dudum also stated that it hopes to expand into new areas such as menopause and low-testosterone care.