Health marketplace Sesame announced Wednesday a new clinical weight loss program that will give eligible consumers access to compounded versions of Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy for $249 a month.
Sesame offers patients the opportunity to book and pay for appointments with doctors and specialists directly through the website, thus eliminating middlemen such as insurers.
The company said it will add semaglutide – the active ingredient in Wegovy and Novo Nordisk’s diabetes injection Ozempic – to its platform to give users safe access to obesity and diabetes treatments as many branded drugs are in short supply. Sesame already offers branded weight loss and diabetes drugs through its platform, including through a partnership with Costco.
However, the company’s new program could provide a more affordable alternative for weight loss, as prescription drugs are typically cheaper than brand-name drugs. Wegovy and Ozempic both cost about $1,000 a month before insurance costs, and most weight-loss programs from competing digital health companies don’t include the cost of those drugs.
“Because of this drug shortage, we are making a version of compounded semaglutide available to our users on behalf of the American consumer at a … (very affordable price),” said Michael Botta, president and co-founder of Sesame, in an interview with CNBC. “We actually believe this is probably the most affordable price the consumer can find on a comparison basis.”
Wegovy and Ozempic belong to a very popular class of weight-loss and diabetes drugs called GLP-1 supplements. They mimic certain gut hormones to help curb a patient’s appetite and regulate their blood sugar. The popularity of these treatments has exploded in recent years, and some analysts predict that the industry could exceed $100 billion in annual sales by 2030.
Supply shortages are one of the biggest hurdles for Novo Nordisk and its main competitor Eli Lilly, as rising demand can make it difficult for many patients to get the drugs. When brand-name drugs with GLP-1 become scarce, certain manufacturers can produce finished products if they meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements.
The lowest dosage of Wegovy is in short supply, but all other dosages of the drug and Ozempic are available, according to the FDA’s drug shortage database.
Compounded drugs are customized alternatives to brand-name drugs that are designed to meet the needs of a specific patient, such as when they cannot swallow a pill or are allergic to the coloring in a particular product. These compounded drugs can be prescribed, manufactured and dispensed under two sections of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
This law created two classes of pharmacies that manufacture drugs in-house. The FDA regulates so-called 503B pharmacies, which can manufacture larger quantities of drugs without individual prescriptions. 503A pharmacies, on the other hand, can manufacture individual drugs for individual patients and are largely regulated by the states, not the FDA.
But both Wegovy and Ozempic are protected by patents in the U.S. and abroad, and Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly do not supply their drugs’ active ingredients to outside groups. The companies say that raises questions about what some manufacturers are selling and marketing to consumers.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have fought back against illegal versions of their treatments, suing slimming clinics, medical spas and pharmacies across the U.S. over the past year. The FDA also said last month it had received reports of patients taking overdoses of semaglutide that were the result of dosing errors, such as patients giving themselves the wrong amounts of a treatment.
Botta said Sesame initially “stayed very far away from compounded drugs” because the company felt uncertain about their purity and quality. But the more Sesame learned about The more we see of compounded versions of GLP-1s, the “the stronger their potency, the safer they seem to be. People tend to have good experiences taking them.”
Sesame then sent its teams to inspect several 503B pharmacies that manufacture medicines.
“We have decided to work with a pharmacy that definitely meets our requirements in terms of checking its processes, its quality and its performance,” said Botta.
The pharmacy partnering with Sesame will produce prefilled, single-use syringes, rather than a single vial that patients must measure themselves. Botta said this could help patients “avoid the risk of overfilling a syringe, overinjecting, overdosing — overdosing on this medication.”
To participate in Sesame’s new program, patients must fill out an intake form and select a healthcare provider. They will receive a video consultation with the provider, complete some lab tests and receive a prescription if the provider deems it appropriate.
Patients can access ongoing consultations via video chat, as well as a library of content on nutrition, fitness and mindfulness. The content won’t be immediately available when the new program launches on Wednesday, but Sesame said it would be available in about two weeks.
Anyone who signs up in the meantime will automatically get access to it once it’s available, the company added.
“There are millions and millions of Americans struggling with both obesity itself and all the complications of obesity,” Botta said. “We think it’s worth connecting patients who would otherwise struggle with the shortage of care.”
