The New York Inventory Trade with a Hims & Hers Well being banner is pictured within the Manhattan borough of New York Metropolis.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
Hims & Hers is dealing with scrutiny from lawmakers over what they declare is a “deceptive” commercial for its weight reduction choices that is slated to run through the Tremendous Bowl on Sunday.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ailing.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wrote a letter to the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration on Friday expressing considerations over an “upcoming commercial” that “dangers deceptive sufferers by omitting any security or facet impact info when selling a particular sort of weight reduction remedy.”
The Hims & Hers advert, which the corporate launched on-line in late January, is named “Sick of the System” and sharply criticizes the $160 billion greenback weight reduction business. It exhibits visuals of present weight reduction drugs often known as GLP-1s, together with injection pens that seem like Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic.
The advert claims these medicine are “priced for earnings, not sufferers,” and factors to Hims & Hers’ weight reduction drugs as “inexpensive” and “doctor-trusted” options.
“We’re complying with present regulation and are completely satisfied to proceed working with Congress and the brand new Administration to repair the damaged well being system and be certain that sufferers have decisions for high quality, protected, and inexpensive healthcare,” a Hims & Hers spokesperson advised CNBC in an announcement.
The senators don’t point out Hims & Hers by title of their letter, however they do reference among the visuals within the advert, together with “imagery of an injection pen with distinctive traits reflective of an present brand-name remedy.”
“Nowhere on this promotion is there any facet impact disclosure, danger, or security info as can be usually required in a pharmaceutical commercial,” the senators wrote. “Additional, for less than three seconds through the minute-long industrial does the display screen flash in small, barely legible font, that these merchandise should not FDA-approved.”
Hims & Hers started providing compounded semaglutide by way of its platform in Might after launching a brand new weight reduction program in late 2023. Semaglutide is the lively ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, which may every value round $1,000 a month with out insurance coverage.
Shares of Hims & Hers jumped over 170% final yr, because of hovering demand for GLP-1s. They rose one other 8% on Friday, lifting the corporate’s market cap to about $9.5 billion.
Compounded GLP-1s are usually less expensive and may serve instead for sufferers which might be navigating complicated provide hurdles and spotty insurance coverage protection. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for beneath $200 a month.
The FDA would not assessment the protection and efficacy of compounded merchandise, that are custom-made options to model medicine designed to fulfill a particular affected person’s wants. Compounded merchandise will also be produced when brand-name therapies are in scarcity.
Semaglutide is presently in scarcity, in response to the FDA.
Sens. Durbin and Marshall mentioned that commercials for brand-name GLP-1 drugs embrace “important danger disclosures to sufferers about negative effects and contraindications, together with warnings about potential gallbladder, pancreas, vomiting, diarrhea, and different implications.”
A launch on Durbin’s web site says that the advert in query seems to use a loophole “relating to promotions of compounded medicine by telehealth corporations.”
The senators mentioned they consider the FDA could have the authority to take enforcement actions towards advertising and marketing that might mislead sufferers, and so they plan to introduce new laws to deal with regulatory loopholes.
WATCH: New examine reveals why sufferers cease taking GLP-1 weight problems medicine
