According to the Zhitong Finance and Economics app, on Tuesday, Hims & Hers Health (HIMS.US), which focuses on providing remote medical services and personalized health products through online platforms, experienced a sharp decline of over 8% during regular trading hours in the U.S. stock market. By the end of Tuesday's trading, the stock had dropped by over 7%. This was mainly due to the launch of the low-priced version of the weight loss drug Zepbound by Eli Lilly and Co, a major U.S. pharmaceutical giant. This new version, available only for purchase on LillyDirect, the company's website directly targeting consumers, added more price competition pressure to Hims & Hers Health, which relies on the sales of generic weight loss drugs.

Eli Lilly and Co is currently selling a small and low-priced version of its best-selling weight loss drug Zepbound to the patient population for as low as $399 per month. This is because the company is trying to overcome the supply shortage of the popular weight loss drug injection.

In a recent statement, Lilly stated that patients with a prescription for the weight loss drug Zepbound can now purchase a one-month supply of disposable small bottles directly from Lilly's consumer-facing website LillyDirect starting from Tuesday. The highest price for these small bottles is about half of the normal dose injection of the Zepbound weight loss drug, with higher doses priced at $549 per month and lower at $399, making it more affordable compared to the normal dose.

It is understood that Zepbound from Eli Lilly is usually sold in the form of an exclusive automatic injection pen. When using the small vial, patients have to fill the syringe themselves, but this significantly saves the production time for Eli Lilly's weight loss drugs, allowing a wider range of patients to access the medication.

For Eli Lilly, the complexity of manufacturing their exclusive auto-injector pens severely hampers the supply. Earlier this year, U.S. patients who were struggling to meet prescription demands began urging Eli Lilly to sell the medication in a more easily producible vial form, as has already been done in other countries.

Patrick Johnson, the Executive Vice President of Eli Lilly, stated in an interview that this move is part of Eli Lilly's "all-out" effort to increase the availability of Zepbound and a large-scale drug called Mounjaro, which combines diabetes treatment and weight loss medication. Currently, both drugs are in short supply.

Eli Lilly and Co. emphasized that the price of these small bottled pharmaceuticals is half or less than half of the current prescription pre-filled normal dose bottle price. In addition, the medication will be delivered through the company's exclusive online platform, LillyDirect, which will help to some extent those consumers who are not eligible for the Zepbound savings plan or whose insurance does not cover the weight loss medication to afford it more easily.

US President Biden said in a recent statement on Tuesday, "I'm glad to see one of these manufacturers, Eli Lilly and Co., take steps to lower prices by offering medications directly to consumers at less than half the previous price."

Both Eli Lilly and Co and their strongest competitors in the weight loss drug field, novo-nordisk a/s (NVO.US), are striving to meet the almost unlimited demand for obesity-fighting drugs of the people - Goldman Sachs, a major Wall Street bank, predicts that by the end of this decade (2030), the market size of weight loss drugs will reach a staggering $130 billion. Since their launch, novo-nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound have been in short supply, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still considers them to be very scarce.

This is undoubtedly bad news for Hims & Hers Health, the strongest competitor of Eli Lilly and Co. that recently started offering generic versions of the weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic under Novo Nordisk at a discounted price, known for offering generic prescription drugs directly to consumers throughout the US.

It is understood that in May of this year, the company started selling a normal dose weight loss medication injection that has the same main ingredients as Novo Nordisk's popular weight loss treatment drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic, but at a much lower price.

Due to ongoing shortages of anti-obesity drugs from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed certain pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic drugs. Although these drugs are marketed as having the same active ingredients as Zepbound or Wegovy, they do not have the same level of regulation or official guarantee from the pharmaceutical companies, and in some cases, they may even lead to hospitalization for patients.

Furthermore, because they are usually much cheaper than brand-name weight loss medications, they are driving a development trend in the generic weight loss medication market estimated to be worth up to 1 billion USD, directly competing with Eli Lilly and Co. and Novo Nordisk.

Hims & Hers executives stated in a recent earnings conference call that the company plans to launch a generic version of the weight loss medication with the same core ingredient as Eli Lilly's Zepbound in the near future.

Hims & Hers Health is a digital medical technology company based in the USA, founded in 2017, focusing on providing remote medical services and personalized health products through an online platform. The company's goal is to break down barriers in traditional healthcare and make it easier for users to access health services. Its main business is providing remote professional medical consultations and online prescription drug and health product prescription and delivery services.

Although Hims & Hers Health's stock price fell over 7% as of the close of trading on Tuesday, its stock price has risen nearly 70% since the beginning of the year due to strong demand for generic weight loss drugs and expectations of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve driving small cap stock gains.