Bengaluru — Telehealth agency Hims & Hers Well being mentioned on Tuesday it plans to promote Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drug because it widens its choices to offset any impression from impending restrictions on promoting copies of Novo Nordisk’s weight problems drug.
Shares of Hims & Hers closed 5.1% greater after the corporate mentioned it will broaden its weight-loss choices with branded variations of Lilly’s tirzepatide — the lively ingredient in weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes medication Mounjaro — and generics of Novo’s diabetes drug, liraglutide.
Hims & Hers gives each branded and cheaper variations of Novo’s weight-loss drug Wegovy.
“The elevated stage of product availability broadens Hims’ weight reduction choices, which is a optimistic, although we do be aware that the Zepbound is being bought at a reasonably costly worth level of $1,899 a month,” mentioned Leerink Companions analyst Michael Cherny.
The addition of Lilly’s medication on Hims & Hers’ platform ought to assist widen the corporate’s buyer funnel whereas it contends with the top of the scarcity of Novo’s medication, Cherny mentioned.
Hims & Hers inventory has slumped 40% for the reason that US FDA on February 21 eliminated Novo Nordisk’s top-selling Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic, each identified chemically as semaglutide, from its scarcity checklist.
Their tight provide had allowed Hims & Hers and others to promote cheaper variations of Novo’s semaglutide.
Hims & Hers mentioned in February it can not assure to proceed to promote compounded semaglutide “in the identical method, to the identical extent, or in any respect”.
The FDA mentioned in March that state-licensed compounding pharmacies and outsourcing services — which make compounded medication in bulk — have till April 22 and Could 22 respectively, or till the courtroom decides on the injunction, to cease making Wegovy copies, whichever comes later.
Lilly mentioned in an announcement that Zepbound might be prescribed by any licensed healthcare skilled, including that it has no affiliation with Hims & Hers.
Reuters
