Health and well -being companies are adopting medications to lose weight and creating offers around them in an effort to avoid the destiny of Weightwatchers, which declared bankruptcy this week, claiming the enormous increase in the use of new medications of great success.
But some of Weightwatchers’ closest rivals, the new Tellesalud companies face a new challenge, since the federal regulatory authorities are taking measures against the cheapest versions of Wegovy, of Novo Nordisk, and Zepbound, by Eli Lilly, which have become an important part of the sales of the companies. The success of Telesalud companies may ultimately depend on their association with brand drug manufacturers, according to an analyst.
Weightwatchers declared bankruptcy on Tuesday, since Americans rejected their weight control business in favor of Novo and Lilly medications and copies of pharmacies that can reduce the weight of a person between 15 % and 20 %. These medications, which belong to a class of drugs that slow down the digestion known as GLP-1 agonists, have reduced demand in some large companies, including Walmart’s food division.
When it declared bankruptcy, Weightwatchers said that its weight control system had ceased to be attractive to customers due to the change of opinion on weight against well -being, the competition of telesalud companies that have fully adopted medications to lose weight and even fitness influencers in Tiktok. The company has reached an agreement with its creditors to restructure its debt and quickly leave the judicial process.
Adam McBride, executive director of the Telesalud Eden company, said that Weightwatchers, who tried to turn to the Telesalud and sell medicines to lose weight, had an outdated system that was based on points and face -to -face meetings that customers did not like. “I don’t think they listen to its members,” said McBride.
Eden and his rival Noom operate telesalud platforms centered on weight with integrated advice on lifestyle, something with what Weightwatchers had difficulties.
The newest companies have been selling versions without brand of drugs to lose weight more demanded as part of their offer.
Clinical subscriptions that give access to doctors and prescription medications represent more than half of NOOM’s income, according to executive director Geoff Cook.
In the rival company Hims and Hers, the medicines composed to lose weight represented 20 % of last year’s income, and even Weightwatchers depended in part on that income.
NOOM presents medications as a kind of superpoderous tool to lose weight, which, according to the company, attracts customers to other parts of their platform.
“In the last month or two, the people who are taking the medications are registering more meals,” said NOOM’s executive director. “They weigh more and participate in other aspects of the Noom program at a rate even better than that of the flagship program.”
The fashion of thinning medications
Other companies in the health sector see opportunities for products and services that take advantage of the popularity of new medicines to lose weight, whose annual sales could reach 150 billion dollars in the next decade, according to some forecasts.
The chain of health stores The Vitamin Shoppe has experienced an increase in the demand for supplements that could help combat the loss of appetite, the decrease in muscle tone and other side effects of LPG-1, as its president, Muriel González, has declared. Sales of a set of supplements marketed for people who take these medications have fired more than 20 % compared to last year, as reported by a company spokesman.
Last year, The Vitamin Shoppe launched a Telesalud service, Whole Health RX, which connects consumers with medical suppliers who can prescribe medications to lose weight and recommend supplements to provide protein, fiber and multivitamins while they are taken.
Other companies have taken similar measures. The GNC supplements seller, seeking to capitalize on the trend, added a section in its stores dedicated to LPG-1 users last year, in which it sells powder and fiber protein.
Weightwatchers herself keeps trying to turn. A spokesman said in a statement that GLP-1 medications to lose weight are a growing and essential part of his business. He said that his program works, citing an internal study in which the patients of their clinic who took GLP-1 medications lost 21 % of their weight and then passed to their behavioral program and lost another 2 % after 13 weeks.
But the easy sale of cheaper versions of the drugs is coming to an end, even if the judgments continue. The United States Food and Medicines Administration is blocking the sale of cheaper compound versions of the drugs now than Wegovy and Zepbound and their related medications for diabetes, Ozempic and Mounjaro, no longer scarce.
The sale of cheaper versions of medicines has been a huge source of benefits for these companies, and the loss is a problem, according to Karen Andersen, a Morningstar analyst specialized in health.
A road for well -being companies is to collaborate with brand drug manufacturers, according to Andersen.
“Companies like Novo need partners who have access to patients,” he said. However, he added that finding creative ways to associate with key competitors is not an easy task. “It will be a difficult path.” (Information by Amina Niasse and Nicholas P. Brown in New York; additional information from Dietrich Knauch in New York; Peter Henderson edition, Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot).
