Weight loss startups offer access to new drugs, but do they provide good care?

Weight loss startups including Calibrate Health and Found offer weight loss drugs, but some patients complain that they provide much help in terms of health care.

Many Americans turn to the latest big idea to lose weight — fad diets, fitness crazes, dodgy herbs and pills, bariatric surgery, just to name a few. They’re rarely the magic solution people dream of.

Now a wave of startups offer access to a new category of drugs coupled with intensive behavioral coaching online. But already concerns are emerging.

These startups, spurred by hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from blue-chip venture capital firms, have signed up well over 100,000 patients and could reach millions more. These patients pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, to access new drugs, called GLP-1 agonists, along with online coaching to encourage healthy habits.

The startups initially positioned themselves in lofty terms. “This is the last weight loss program you’ll try,” said a 2020 marketing analysis by startup Calibrate Health, in messaging designed to reach one of its target demographics, the “Working Mom.” (Company spokesperson Michelle Wellington said the document does not reflect Calibrate’s current marketing strategy.)

But while doctors and patients are intrigued by the new model, some customers complain online that reality is short of the buildup: They say they got canned advice and unresponsive clinicians — and some report they couldn’t get the newest drugs.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/weight-loss-startups-offer-access-new-drugs-provide-good-care-rcna56793


Post ID: 01994f56-ef89-403d-91ec-ba7e111247f2
Rating: 5
Updated: 1 year ago
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