Hims & Hers Stock Is Due for a Crash Diet. The GLP-1 Surge Is Fading Fast.

The rapid rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs has come with a raucous side show—a wave of copycat drugs unbound by drug patents. The knockoff surge was led by Hims & Hers Health, the telehealth firm that began selling the drugs last spring.

Cheap, compounded versions of the weight loss drugs have been a cottage industry for a few years, but it was the arrival of Hims, a multibillion-dollar public company, that brought the knockoff medicines into the mainstream. Hims stock soared in the months that followed, while the GLP-1 patent holders, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, saw their stocks come under significant pressure.