As the Philadelphia Eagles romped to victory against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl LIX, the eyes of the pharmaceutical industry were on an advert aired by telehealth company Hims & Hers that once again ignited the debate around the legitimacy of compounded weight loss medications.
Controversy has surrounded the commercial, called ‘Sick of the System’, in the lead-up to America’s biggest sporting event. Drug industry bodies and politicians labelled the advert misleading while pharmacy compounding experts backed Hims & Hers’ message.
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The 60-second advert details obesity in America, what it calls the country’s deadliest epidemic. Hims & Hers says the weight loss system is broken, citing that profit in the pharmaceutical industry is more important than patient health. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) injection pens, that resemble Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide products Wegovy and Ozempic, are featured in the advert.
“The system wasn’t built to help us, it was built to keep us sick and stuck,” the narrator says whilst Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’ plays in the background.
Live reactions to the advert being aired during the Super Bowl mainly picked up on the “hypocritical” tone of the advert. One user on X stated it was “just pharma regurgitation”, with another questioning why “they’re bagging on the weight loss industry and then advertising a weight loss pill?”
Hims & Hers offers compounded semaglutide, a copycat version of weight loss drug Wegovy that contains semaglutide as its active ingredient. The telehealth company criticises the $160bn weight loss industry, referencing needlessly high prices of GLP-1RA drugs. Hims & Hers sells their semaglutide copycat for under $200 a month while Wegovy costs around $1,000 a month without insurance.
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By GlobalDataUS Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs such as Wegovy can be compounded under certain conditions, such as if the original approved drug is in shortage and unavailable. However, compounded versions are not directly regulated by the FDA and their safety has often been questioned.
Two US senators, Democrat Dick Durbin and Republican Roger Marshall, wrote a letter to the FDA ahead of the Super Bowl expressing concerns over the advert because it “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information when promoting a specific type of weight loss medication”.
The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PMA) – a trade body that addresses issues such as counterfeit medicines and online drug sellers – said that it was “deeply disturbed” by the advertisement.
PMA’s executive director Shabbir Safdar said: “Heavy on hyperbole and light on ethical transparency, this marketing blitz promotes altered, poorly regulated versions of legitimate pharmaceutical medications – also known as compounded drugs – intended for people living with serious medical conditions, including diabetes and obesity.”
Backing the legitimacy of the advert, Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding CEO Scott Brunner commented that because compounded medications are not FDA-approved, they do not carry the same required labelling.
Brunner said: “[The advert] does not promote a specific drug or medication and therefore is not required to provide information about side effects or risks. Instead, it encouraged viewers to consult with a healthcare provider, which aligns with the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines for non-specific, ‘help-seeking’ advertisements.”
Hims & Hers’ Super Bowl commercial slot is just the latest in a long line of power struggles between the pharmaceutical industry and sellers of compounded GLP1-RAs. Novo Nordisk has previously asked the FDA to block compounders from manufacturing copycat versions of its products, citing significant safety risks.
Eli Lilly, developer of tirzepatide, which is marketed as weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro, has sued online sellers for improperly copying its drugs. Whilst semaglutide is still in shortage according to the FDA, tirzepatide was removed from the agency’s shortage list in December 2024, signalling the end of legally manufactured compounded versions of Eli Lilly’s products.
