People talk a lot about like Ozempic face, right? Or Ozempic butt or things like that. And I think the media was using it as an element of fear. And it reminded me actually in the late 1800s, probably around 1895, they literally wrote about bicycle face. It was a way to actually criticize the idea of women using bicycles because they would get flushed in the face and their hair would get sweaty. And so I think the same thing is happening in many regards as it relates to using these weight loss medications. Is should everyone get a GLP-1? No, but I would say far more people are both clinically eligible and would statistically benefit from one than I think people are giving it credit for.
That's Zach Reitano, CEO of telehealth company Ro, the leading provider of branded GLP-1s in the US. Zach was first a guest on this show two years ago in the early Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound craze, and since then he's helped to drive an exploding market in weight loss drugs. Already in 2026, Ro grabbed attention with a Super Bowl ad featuring Serena Williams and was chosen by Novo Nordisk as official telehealth partner for the new pill form of Wegovy. Today's episode digs in with Zach on all that and more, including controversial questions about the long-term health impacts of GLP-1s, cultural backlash, economic implications. It's a candid high-energy session with one of healthcare's most disruptive builders. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response.
I'm Bob Safian and I'm here with Zach Reitano, CEO of telehealth company Ro. Zach, welcome back to the show.
Thank you so much. I'm glad to be back.
You and I talked in what was the early phase of GLP-1 mania as weight loss drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound were becoming household names. Since then, you have been in the heart of the action. I saw you had a Super Bowl ad this year featuring Serena Williams. I see your subway ads here in New York City with Serena and Charles Barkley all the time. I love them. I assume that having Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, Serena's husband, as an investor and on your board that sort of helped make that possible, helped connect you to Serena.
Definitely helped with the initial introduction, but I think we would give her all the credit in the world for telling the story and making it happen.
Yeah, I mean a Super Bowl ad is expensive. What made you decide to do that? Because early on it almost seemed like advertising wasn't even a good idea with GLP-1s because there wasn't enough supply.
It's a lot of money, but I actually don't think it's expensive when you think about it. So the key distinction there, it is the only time in the entire year where 100 million plus people gather, right? And ads are part of the product, right? So all other times they're an interruption in your life. You're trying to get past them. I mean, I genuinely enjoy ads and the storytelling behind them. My wife makes fun of me for it. But for the most part, it's the time where you pick up your phone or you go to the restroom. But during the Super Bowl, it's actually the time where many people, not everyone, but many people pay the most attention. So, it provides a very, very unique opportunity. And for us, we announced our partnership with Serena in August, really trying to emphasize the concept that GLP-1s are not a shortcut. Weight management and weight loss and that journey. People who struggle with it, it's often perceived as a lack of self-discipline or willpower, right? And that using a medication for it could be perceived as a shortcut. Well, I think it's fairly obvious that there's no one probably on the planet with more self-discipline and willpower than Serena Williams. That was the first myth we wanted to bust and we felt like she was the perfect person who uses every tool to optimize performance and optimize her health, right, but would never take a shortcut. She also talked about her improvement in blood sugar levels. She also talked about her reduction of heart disease, reduction of cholesterol by 30%. And her improvement in knee pain, but that was not the story that got picked up. And so with the Super Bowl campaign, the intent was to try and break this second myth that GLP-1s are only for weight loss.
And the last time we spoke, I believe that GLP-1s were only approved for diabetes and newly obesity.
That's right. And the cash pay prices were about $1,300. Fast forward to today, they're approved for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, sleep apnea, being studied for neurodegenerative diseases, substance use disorders, pain management. And so we felt again a very, very powerful story to tell and it was not about needing more demand. I think it was about continuing to reach and give other people permission to seek out the best tools for their health.
The last time we talked we talked some about some of the backlash that was going on then about, you know, GLP-1 ads that some folks were saying, oh, you're kind of labeling folks who are carrying more weight as needing to change their bodies. Did that risk give you any pause about the Super Bowl or any of the rest of this or has the cultural conversation like moved away from that?
We have seen, I think there has been fortunately a reduction in the stigma but it still very much exists and it exists in all aspects of life. It exists when someone walks in the doctor's office. It exists in social media. It exists with friends and family. It's so wrapped up in so many different components of people's lives. I will say what is interesting is what was seen as shocking, you know, three, maybe three and a half, four years ago, our ad that we originally talked about was literally a subway campaign where it showed the medication, it showed the pen, right? And then it showed someone injecting the pen and then it said a weekly shot to lose weight and had the safety information.
Yeah, it was a very calm measured ad compared to the reaction which was super emotional. It just said what the thing did and it showed people using it as their doctor would direct them to.
And so I think that, you know, a weekly shot to lose weight probably is not surprising to people to this day, right? So you would say, hey, if we ran that same campaign, would people have that same reaction? I think no. And the fact that they wouldn't have that same reaction is to me a sign that there has been some level of improvement. I think we'll look back 5 years from now, Serena sharing her story, sort of this watershed moment.
Along with your Super Bowl ad. Big news this year has been Danish company Novo Nordisk launching Wegovy in pill form, $149 a month. Ro is Novo's telehealth partner for the launch. What's been the sort of the uptake on the pill so far? Like is it kind of destined to take over the market or are the injections still more effective?
So, first, can we just acknowledge how awesome it is that the starting price is $149? The fact that it's come down 90%. I think is a really powerful indication of the power of direct-to-consumer health and cash pay, right? It's the combination of I think in this industry things that regulators and policy makers have been trying to do for decades, which is create competition that leads to transparency, higher quality products, more convenience, and lower cost. Basically happened when the market was forced to operate in the consumer industry, right? But in terms of who it's resonating and what the expectations for the pill were, we had really high expectations and high hopes for the pill. And I think that what has been really exciting to see is that the results have far exceeded our quite high expectations. Right. So by an order of magnitude, the demand for the pill has been quite tremendous. And I think part of it is price absolutely but part of it is also because we believe and we've started to see this that we do think that there were tens and still are tens of millions of people who are sitting on the sidelines simply because of the form factor.
Yeah. Injections scare people, right?
Injections scare people. Whether it's stigma or whether it actually just seems quote unquote too serious of an injection to take that step. A pill completely disarms that. The original not worry but question was hey would the pill cannibalize the existing injectable market?
I was going to ask that, are people switching?
So I would say the vast majority, vast majority it is net new and it's market expanding. There's probably two groups but some who have just injection fatigue every single week and prefer that daily pill option. But the most common use case are probably just travelers right because of the cold chain requirement with the injection. It's a little bit cumbersome to travel with and so a daily pill that they just take every morning when they wake up is a little bit easier but the vast majority of people are net new to the product.
And the effectiveness of like if I'm starting today whether I'm taking the injection or whether I'm taking the pill if I'm cost agnostic is one more effective than the other?
Quite comparable in terms of weight loss. So the pill you can lose if you use it as directed every day in the morning fasted with a little bit of water that you'll see patients lose 16 to 17% of their body weight quite similar around 16, 17% for the injection. There are injections, there's an injection by Eli Lilly called Zepbound, right? People have heard Mounjaro or the active ingredient being tirzepatide that is more effective. Patients lose about 22% of their body weight. You're now starting to see a larger segmentation process and so what you're going to see over the next let's say year, 2, 3, 4, 5 is you're going to see patients actually they're going to see multiple options in terms of the price, the starting price, you're going to see continuous competition. For weight loss, you're going to see options that are 12, 15, 17, 20, 25, 30%. And then you have this range on what, you know, the frequency and form factor. You're going to have daily, weekly, monthly, potentially quarterly, six-month, annual options in the coming years, as well as injectables and pills.
I know. I mean, it sounds like, you know, it used to be you would go to the shelf and there'd be one thing, and now there's a whole row of shelves of different things that are available for you, and that shelf space is just going to grow.
It's going to be able to better fit each individual patient's needs based on what they value.
When Hims and Hers announced a $49 a month version of the Wegovy pill earlier this year, the FDA stepped in to shut it down. What's the competitive landscape there between like do you look at Hims and Hers as sort of a brother in arms in building this space or is it like a nemesis that makes things more difficult for you?
It's very similar, I would say, like driving a car, which is you have a destination in mind, that destination is not identical to everyone else. And but 5% of the time when you're driving the car, you're looking left, you're looking right, you're looking behind you, you're aware of your surroundings. And I'd say we look at competition very similarly. Ro is the leading provider of branded GLP-1s in the country. Absolute number one, far and away. And the reason that is the case is because we I think relative to all competitors, right? not naming one specifically, but all competitors really work backwards from prioritizing what is absolutely best for patients. We offer cash pay and insurance options. We have the strongest formulary and then we have the highest quality care which we've published our data showing that patients on Ro lose the same amount of weight as they do in clinical trials, which is very rare from when you see real world evidence match clinical trials. So, we're less obsessed with what competitors are doing and far more obsessed with what our patients need and want.
And to go with your car driving analogy, if there's a car near you that sort of gets pulled over by the cops or is blocking traffic in some way, like that's not necessarily something that you're focusing on or worrying about happening. You're just going to find your own route.
