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By Madison Muller and Jessica Nix | Bloomberg In just a few years, Hims & Hers Health Inc. reached almost $1 billion in sales by making it easy to buy cheap, generic versions of popular drugs such as Viagra. Now, it’s using that playbook to jump into the hottest part of health-care: weight-loss shots.

And in typical fashion, a big part of the company’s pitch is the discount. Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk A/S, costs roughly $1,350 for a month of injections without insurance, and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound is similarly priced.



Hims said it’s offering a treatment with the same active ingredient as Wegovy for $199 a month. That undercuts big pharma by as much as 85%. This will help customers access these drugs without “navigating the shortages and costs that are currently limiting access to the branded medications,” Hims said in a press release.

Shares of Hims soared as much as 16% on Monday. That came after the stock gained more than 60% this year through last week. The new, wildly popular shots — often referred to as GLP-1s for mimicking a hormone by that name — are protected by patents until at least 2032.

That means generic versions aren’t yet available. But Hims and other telehealth firms have found a workaround: Due to widespread supply shortages in the US, the Food and Drug Administration allows so-called compounding pharmacies to make what are essentially copycat versions of these drugs. “It’s gonna be a big part of the weight loss category going forw.

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