Novo Nordisk’s Breakup Text Crushes Hims’ Stock… But It’s the FDA That Could Finish the Job

Hims & Hers has come a long way from awkwardly pitching hair pills and ED meds in podcast ads… usually sandwiched between a murder story and a mattress promo. For years, the company felt less like a healthcare provider and more like a lifestyle brand with a prescription pad. Think more "Instagram wellness energy" than FDA-grade medicine. Honestly, they weren’t far off from the crowd selling turmeric capsules with claims it could fix your anxiety and your love life. But that changed in a big way last year… thanks to one drug: semaglutide.

If you've somehow missed it, semaglutide is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. It's the drug that reshaped the weight-loss industry, became a status symbol in Hollywood, and kicked off what might be the biggest gold rush healthcare has seen in decades. And Hims was all in.

As the demand for GLP-1 weight-loss meds exploded, Hims rode the trend like their future depended on it (because, well, it did). In Q1 of this year, revenue spiked 111% to $586 million. Subscriber count hit 2.4 million, and average revenue per user climbed to $84. Again, that growth wasn’t coming from $20 shampoo subscriptions. It was driven almost entirely by weight-loss prescriptions.

At the time, Hims was slinging compounded semaglutide… basically, off-brand versions of the drug mixed in pharmacies while name-brand Wegovy was still in short supply. And for a while, that worked. Until the FDA came knocking in February and said, “Yeah, no… this isn’t a smoothie bar. You can’t just freestyle injections.” Regulators cracked down on mass-produced compounded versions, limiting them to rare medical exceptions. The stock dropped 27% overnight.

To their credit, Hims did what any growth-obsessed tech company would do: shifted immediately and announced a sexy new partnership with Novo Nordisk… the actual maker of Wegovy. This gave them a legal and scalable way to keep selling the hottest drug in the country. Wall Street loved it. The stock popped nearly 30% in a single day. Hims looked like it had gone from gray-area middleman to legitimate GLP-1 distributor in record time. And then… the breakup text arrived.

This morning, Novo Nordisk officially ended the deal. According to them, Hims just couldn’t quit their old habit. They allege the company kept pushing compounded versions under the radar… basically doing the very thing they were supposed to stop. Novo called it “deceptive marketing” and said Hims was still mass-compounding semaglutide behind the scenes (not exactly the kind of thing pharma giants find charming).

And just to needle, Novo added that some of the active ingredients in those knockoff injections were being sourced from overseas labs in China… many of which haven’t been inspected by the FDA. You know, just what you want from your $599/month stomach shot: the pharmaceutical equivalent of back-alley vape juice.

As of now, Hims hasn’t said much. Wegovy is still listed on their site (for now), but without Novo, they no longer have direct access to the real deal. And make no mistake about it, that’s an existential problem. This wasn’t just a nice-to-have partnership. It was the cleanest, safest way for Hims to stay in the weight-loss game after regulators clamped down on compounded versions. Without it, they’re back to trying to operate in the legal gray zone… and this time, under a much brighter spotlight.

Yes, they can technically still prescribe compounded versions in special cases. But the margins aren’t the same, and they definitely can’t scale like they were before. Meanwhile, competitors like Ro, LifeMD, and CVS are circling… bigger platforms with more resources and fewer headlines involving FDA violations.

And then there’s the trust issue. When the company that makes your top-selling drug accuses you of risking patient safety and breaking the rules, it’s not just a bad look. It throws your entire business model into question. Are you a credible telehealth provider, or just a branding play running on borrowed legitimacy?

That said, Hims has pulled off comebacks before. Earlier this year, they took a 27% hit and the stock more than doubled afterward. So you have to hand it to leadership… they’re scrappy, and their subscriber base isn’t going anywhere overnight. But this time feels different. This was far worse than a market correction… this was your main supplier slamming the door and throwing you under the bus on the way out.

While they’re still projecting $2.3 to $2.4 billion in revenue for 2025… that’s only believable if GLP-1 sales stay strong. And right now, that’s looking less likely than your crypto bro friend paying back that “short-term loan” from 2021.

The GLP-1 boom is what made Hims & Hers a breakout name. But without Wegovy, and without Novo backing them, the whole story starts to unravel. They either need a new pharma partner (good luck with that), a legal workaround (even dicier), or a very compelling Plan B. Because right now, this is the healthcare equivalent of Coca-Cola being told they can’t sell Diet Coke anymore. And that’s a tough spot to be in when half your customers already developed a taste for it.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Coca-Cola as mentioned in the article.