“I promise it won’t happen again…” -Hims CEO Andrew Dudum, knowing full well, it will in fact, happen again

Well… turns out the Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break things” hits a little different when the thing you’re breaking is federal drug law.

That lesson arrived quickly for Hims & Hers, which wasted no time slamming the eject button on its would-be Wegovy clone after Novo Nordisk and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration demonstrated they were fully prepared to ruin everyone’s week.

Story time…

Earlier this week, Hims decided to poke the biggest bear in modern pharma by rolling out a compounded, copycat version of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy. Same active ingredient (semaglutide), way cheaper price tag (as low as $49 for month one) and marketed straight to the masses through Hims’ slick, startup-coded funnel.

This prompted Pharma Twitter to immediately lean forward in their metaphorical gaming chair.

Because, surprise, surprise… Novo Nordisk was not happy Bob.

By Thursday, Novo came out swinging, accusing Hims of “illegal mass compounding,” deceptive advertising, and treating GLP-1s like generic cold meds. Translation: we invented this cash cow, and you’re not allowed to photocopy it.

Then things escalated.

On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration jumped in like the hall monitor nobody invited. FDA said it planned to take legal action against Hims, which included restricting access to the underlying ingredients, and potentially refer the whole thing to the Department of Justice (dun dun dun).

Not exactly the kind of push notification you want heading into a pretty big Super Bowl weekend if you’re CEO Andrew “copy that” Dudum.

So by yesterday, Hims faced the classic fight-or-flight test. Staring down Big Pharma and the FDA (both armed to the teeth with legal artillery) it smartly chose flight.

(Source: Reuters)

Hims announced it would immediately pull the compounded semaglutide pill from its platform, citing “constructive conversations” with stakeholders and reiterating its commitment to “safe, affordable, and personalized care.” Translation: okay okay, we hear you… this won’t happen again (at least not until next quarter).

This isn’t a great look for PR either. This all blows up literally hours before Hims is set to run a Super Bowl ad during Super Bowl 60 (narrated by the rapper Common, no less) about how America’s “wealth gap has turned into a health gap.”

The company previously warned the ad would “ruffle some feathers,” though it probably didn’t mean regulators, Big Pharma, and the DOJ all at once.

Now Hims finds itself in a strange spot trying to position itself as the champion of affordable healthcare… while backing away from the very product that made the affordability argument impossible for incumbents to ignore.

For now, shareholders can exhale. There’s no looming legal cage match with one of the most powerful pharmaceutical companies on Earth.

But let’s not pretend this is a change in philosophy.

As the saying goes, history is doomed to repeat itself… and history suggests Hims will be back with another “copycat” solution soon enough.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.