Health marketplace Sesame announced Wednesday a brand new clinical weight reduction program that may give eligible consumers access to compounded versions of Novo Nordisk's blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy for $249 a month.
Sesame offers patients the chance to book and pay for appointments with doctors and specialists directly through the web site, thus eliminating middlemen resembling insurers.
The company said it should add semaglutide – the energetic ingredient in Wegovy and Novo Nordisk's diabetes injection Ozempic – to its platform to provide users secure access to treatments for obesity and diabetes, as many branded drugs are briefly supply. Sesame already offers branded weight reduction and diabetes drugs through its platform, including through a partnership with Costco.
However, the corporate’s latest program could function a less expensive alternative to weight reduction because compounded medicines are typically cheaper than their brand-name counterparts. Wegovy and Ozempic each cost about $1,000 monthly before insurance, and most weight-loss programs from competing digital health firms don't cover the associated fee of those drugs.
“Due to this drug shortage, on behalf of the American consumer, we are making a version of compounded semaglutide available to our users… [a] very affordable price,” said Michael Botta, president and co-founder of Sesame, in an interview with CNBC. “In fact, we believe it's probably the cheapest price the consumer can find in a direct comparison.”
Wegovy and Ozempic belong to a very popular class of weight loss and diabetes drugs called GLP-1. They mimic certain gut hormones to 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 more than 100 billion US dollars of 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 dose of Wegovy is in short supply, but all other doses of the drug and Ozempic are available, according to the FDA Database on drug shortages.
Compounded medications are customized alternatives to branded medications that are tailored to the needs of a specific patient, such as when they cannot swallow a pill or are allergic to the coloring of a particular product. These compounded medications can be prescribed under two sections of the Federal Law on Food, Drugs and Cosmetics.
This law created two classes of pharmacies that manufacture drugs themselves. The FDA regulates so-called 503B pharmacies, which can manufacture large quantities of drugs without individual prescriptions. 503A pharmacies, on the other hand, that manufacture drugs themselves, can manufacture individual drugs for individual patients and are largely regulated by the states rather than 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. last year. The FDA also said last month that it had Reports received of patients who have suffered an overdose of compounded semaglutide due to dosing errors, for example because the patients self-administered the wrong amount of a medication.
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, quite than a single vial that patients must measure themselves. Botta said this might help patients “avoid the danger 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 tens of millions and tens of millions of Americans fighting each obesity itself and all of the complications of obesity,” Botta said. “We think it's price connecting patients who would otherwise struggle with the shortage of care.”
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