| A few months ago, Eli Lilly & Co. — the world's most valuable drugmaker — ran a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal and other publications taking aim at the booming market for knockoff weight-loss drugs. While the company has taken a number of legal actions against medical spas, doctors and compounding pharmacies that sell or promote copycat versions of its blockbuster shot Zepbound, it's now appealing directly to consumers: "We are making obesity medications. But want to ensure you are taking the real product," the WSJ ad said. Some businesses are hitting back. On Monday, telehealth company Noom Inc. took out its own cherry red advert in the Journal "challenging recent comments from Lilly regarding compounded medications," a spokesperson said. Noom, which was one of the first telehealth companies to offer weight-loss shots, recently began selling a copycat version of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy for $149 a month. "Noom provides affordable weight loss medications," the company's ad says. "Because GLP-1s in NY should cost the same as in London."  After Eli Lilly placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal suggesting its weight-loss drug was "the real product," Noom responded with its own newspaper ad claiming its drugs were much more affordable. Sources: Eli Lilly, Noom With brand-name weight-loss drugs costing over $1,000 a month in the US, telehealth companies like Noom are luring in customers with lower prices. The catch is that these drugs don't follow the same rigorous approval process as brand-name drugs or generics — and compounding pharmacies are only allowed to make them when the real medications are in short supply. Recently, supply of the drugs has been getting better, and Lilly Chief Executive Officer Dave Ricks says he expects his company's drugs to officially come out of shortage very soon. In the meantime, he thinks US drug regulators should be doing more to stop the proliferation of compounded weight-loss drugs. "Let's be honest, most of these outfits are doing this to make money," he told me in an interview. "They're not focused on the same quality standards we are. They're not focused on making sure patients get better." Noom is taking a very different approach. Its newspaper ad calls for policymakers to "keep the shortage in place until GLP-1s cost the same in NYC & London." Geoff Cook, the company's CEO, told me that he worries when the shortage is officially declared over — and compounding pharmacies are presumably no longer allowed to make cheaper knockoffs — that "potentially millions" of people will lose access to affordable weight-loss drugs. "Our view in America in particular, where brand name drugs are quite expensive, there needs to be more supply of these medications not less," Cook told me. Lilly recently rolled out a lower cost version of its drug Zepbound in vial form, but insurance coverage for obesity drugs is still spotty. Cook said that until prices come down, he thinks compounders should be able to sell the drugs. That would likely require policymakers to step in. The price of these drugs is certainly a hot topic in Washington. On Tuesday, a senior vice president at Novo Nordisk said the company's Ozempic is "very likely" to be one of the next drugs to have its price slashed in bargaining with the US government. And next week, Novo's CEO will testify about the drug's cost during a Congressional hearing. I'll be tuning in! — Madison Muller | 
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