Big pharma's latest nuisance

Hims & Hers Health has a simple mantra: fake it ’til you make it.

Today, the telemedicine company began offering a copycat version of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill, priced at only $49—about $100 cheaper than Novo’s version.

The move instantly triggered backlash from Novo Nordisk, which accused the company of “illegal compounding” and vowed legal action against Hims & Hers. The shots fired today are only the latest in the ongoing war between telehealth startups offering compounded GLP-1s and big pharma companies Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, which hold the original patents for the blue-chip weight loss drugs.

“This is another example of Hims & Hers’ historic behavior of duping the American public with knock-off GLP-1 products, and the FDA has previously warned them about their deceptive advertising of GLP-1 knock-offs,” Novo said in a statement today.

But the (many) legal threats over the years and a subsequent seesawing stock price haven’t stopped Hims & Hers from continuing to poke the big pharma bear. While Eli Lilly doesn’t have an oral GLP-1 pill on the market quite yet, it is expected to release its own, orforglipron, this year.

Novo Nordisk dropped 8.16% and Eli Lilly shed 7.88% today after Hims & Hers announced the cheap pill. Hims & Hers rose at the open, but fell after Novo threatened to retaliate, ending the day down 3.77%.

Novo’s woes

The Hims & Hers pill fiasco comes at an already trying time for the Danish drugmaking giant. Back when Ozempic was first approved in 2017, Novo hit the GLP-1 jackpot, propelling its stock to new heights while its market cap surpassed the entire Danish economy.

But after a slew of supply chain bungles, the company blew its early lead. Now, it's not only facing competition from its arch rival in the weight loss drug market, Eli Lilly, but also the slew of telemedicine competitors it's been playing whack-a-mole trying to stop. Over the past year, Novo’s stock has sunk 49.45%.

Meanwhile, its business as a whole is ailing: Earlier this week, Novo said that it expects both its sales and its operating profit to dip between 5% and 13% for the full year, partially because of a sales decline in the US. That news drove Novo shares to their lowest since July 2021 a few days ago.

Eli Lilly, on the other hand, isn’t letting the tough competition hold it back, telling investors that it expects roughly 25% sales growth for the full year when it reported earnings yesterday.

Looks like Novo’s the biggest loser once again.—LB