During Super Bowl LIX, as the Philadelphia Eagles triumphed over the Kansas City Chiefs, a commercial by telehealth company Hims & Hers caught the attention of the pharmaceutical industry. The ad reignited the debate over compounded weight loss drugs and their legitimacy.
The 60-second spot, titled ‘Sick of the System,’ has sparked controversy ahead of the Super Bowl. Industry groups and politicians have criticized the ad as misleading, while pharmacy compounding experts have supported its message.
The ad highlights the obesity crisis in America, calling it the country’s deadliest epidemic. Hims & Hers argues that the weight loss system is broken, claiming that the pharmaceutical industry prioritizes profits over patient health. It features injection pens for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA), similar to Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide products, Wegovy and Ozempic.
“The system wasn’t built to help us, it was built to keep us sick and stuck,” says the narrator, as Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America’ plays in the background.
Following the Super Bowl airing, reactions focused on what many saw as the ad’s “hypocritical” tone. One viewer on X described it as “just pharma regurgitation,” while another asked why Hims & Hers was criticizing the weight loss industry while promoting a weight loss drug.
Hims & Hers offers a compounded version of semaglutide, a cheaper alternative to Wegovy. The telehealth company targets the $160 billion weight loss industry, criticizing the high prices of GLP-1RA drugs. Hims & Hers sells its semaglutide for under $200 a month, compared to Wegovy’s $1,000 price tag without insurance.
