A big change is afoot and the hype is cranking up. With the launch of Wegovy tablets by Novo Nordisk yesterday, we are seeing some very big expectations expressed for a new era in obesity care. The stock market has boosted the value of Novo stock by 15 percent since FDA approved these tablets. Yesterday alone, the stock price jumped by another five percent.

Stock analysts are speculating that this launch might re-energize the obesity business for the company and change the dynamics of the market. Recently, those dynamics have been favoring its competitor, Lilly.

Novo Strategy for Change

For its part, Novo is making it clear that they are shaking things up. The head of the company’s U.S. operations, Dave Moore, told the Washington Post:

“We are launching the Wegovy pill in a way that we’ve never launched before. We have the benefit now of living through multiple launches of our GLP-1s. So we’re prepared, we’re ready to go.”

In talking about being prepared, he is leaning into a promise of wide availability of the product at a lower cost, without the debacle of a shortage that dragged on for years after the original Wegovy launch.

A Direct to Consumer Era?

But the change afoot goes deeper than simply trying to avoid past mistakes. Reporting for Reuters, Maggie Fick and Patrick Wingrove spell it out. They say the Wegovy tablet launch “will be a test case for the fast-growing cash-paying consumer market.”

We’re certainly seeing that in splashy announcements from Novo and telehealth providers such as Ro. In a joint announcement with Ro, Novo’s Moore endorsed this model for delivering care:

“By tapping into Ro’s vertically integrated platform, clinically eligible patients are able to seamlessly access the Wegovy pill from diagnosis to payment to delivery, all in one place – at our lowest prices.”

Lingering Questions

Many unresolved questions surface with the emerging direct-to-consumer approach to obesity care. In particular, there is a worry that the cash pay model will relieve pressure on health plans to cover obesity care and these remarkable medicines. Yale medical professor Reshma Ramachandran expresses the key concern:

“This is still going to exacerbate disparities between the people who always had the means to pay out of pocket for these medications versus those who would need insurance and a much lower price point to be able to access this.”

Ro advertises readiness to help their clients with insurance coverage. That can’t be a bad thing, but that alone does not solve the fundamental problem. Health plans are reluctant to pay for obesity care, simply because the need is so great. They are quite worried about financial exposure.

Will a new era of consumer-driven obesity care bring us cost-effective systems for delivering care at scale? This remains to be seen because we have a long way to go.

Click here, here, and here for more on the Wegovy tablet launch. For broader perspective on consumer-driven care and healthcare affordability, click here.

Lancers, painting by Gino Severini / WikiArt