I know people are upset that grocery prices have risen during the pandemic, but if these drugs get cheap enough...people will basically stop eating and save money at the supermarket!
BTW: Oprah looks awesome recently. She's juicing and I love it.
Hims & Hers, Zealand, and Roche fall: Why weight loss drug stocks are down today
After popping earlier this week, the companies behind the drugs are on a downward swing
By Bruce Gil
PublishedYesterday
Hims & Hers will start selling generic liraglutide later this year.
Several weight loss drug stocks are sliding today as pharmaceutical companies battle for dominance in the booming GLP-1 market — which is projected to hit $105 billion by 2030, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.
GLP-1 drugs, also known as incretin treatments, were made famous by Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic. They mimic hormones that regulate blood sugar and suppress appetite, fueling unprecedented demand. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly currently dominate the space, but rivals are scrambling to carve out their share.
Some companies, like Zealand Pharma and Roche , are developing next-generation treatments with stronger weight-loss effects. Others, like Hims & Hers , betted on more affordable off-brand versions — an approach that thrived during shortages of branded medications but now faces stricter regulatory hurdles.
Zealand Pharma and Roche: Stocks popped, then slid
Shares of Zealand Pharma and Roche fell 11% and 2%, respectively, on Thursday morning — just a day after popping on news of their collaboration to develop new weight-loss treatments.
Zealand announced a partnership with Roche to co-develop and commercialize its experimental drug petrelintide, including a potential combination with Roche’s, CT-388.
As part of the deal, Zealand will receive $1.65 billion upfront, with the total package potentially reaching $5.3 billion if development and sales milestones are met. Roche will handle commercial manufacturing and supply.
“We now hold a more bullish view on the prospect of petrelintide emerging as an important therapeutic intervention for chronic weight management,” William Blair analyst Andy T. Hsieh wrote about the deal in a note Wednesday.
Zealand previously reported that patients taking a high dose of petrelintide over 16 weeks lost an average of 8.6% of their body weight. For comparison, Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy led to an average 15% weight loss over 68 weeks in clinical trials.
Roche, a 127-year-old pharmaceutical giant, made its first major move into the weight-loss drug market in 2024, when it acquired Carmot Therapeutics for $2.7 billion. That deal brought in three obesity drug candidates, including CT-388, which showed promising results in early trials — patients lost 18.8% of their body weight on average after 24 weeks.
Hims & Hers: Regulatory hurdles loom
Hims & Hers, the telehealth company catering to millennials, saw its stock drop nearly 5% Thursday morning.
The company jumped into the GLP-1 market last May, offering compounded semaglutide — an off-brand version of Ozempic. The move paid off as Hims & Hers’ total sales surged 69% last year to $1.5 billion.
But now, the regulatory landscape is shifting. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that shortages of popular GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound are officially over. With branded medications now deemed “fully available,” the agency plans to crack down on compounded versions that closely mimic FDA-approved drugs.
Earlier this week, the FDA clarified its policies, giving companies like Hims & Hers until May 22 to stop selling compounded GLP-1 medications that are essentially identical to commercial versions.
Still, Hims & Hers has other avenues to explore. The company could continue to offer more personalized semaglutide formulations and shift its focus to older generic weight-loss drugs.
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