(Bloomberg) -- Hims & Hers Health Inc., a telehealth company that offers prescriptions for knockoff weight-loss drugs, will provide quality reports about the shots starting next month, the company said in a press release Wednesday.
Shortages of Novo Nordisk A/S’s and Eli Lilly & Co.’s blockbuster brand-name weight-loss drugs have given rise to what could be a $1-billion-a-year market of alternatives made by compounding pharmacies, which are allowed to produce the drugs but receive less government oversight. As copycats have flooded the market, doctors and pharmacy experts have raised safety concerns, cautioning that quality can vary widely between different pharmacies.
Telehealth companies, like Hims, are offering these compounded shots for hundreds of dollars less than what the name-brand versions cost. Weight-loss drugs have been available from Hims since May, and are made by BPI Labs, a compounder that is registered with the US Food and Drug Administration and subject to stricter scrutiny than state-regulated compounding pharmacies.
Following widespread concerns about the safety of compounded weight-loss drugs, Hims announced that starting next month, anyone can look up a “certificate of analysis” on the Hims website using the batch number on the medication. Documents, provided by BPI, will show the results of safety and quality tests.
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