Telehealth's New Weight Class

Clinging to Mount Everest at 20,000 feet, fingers numb and oxygen tank hissing like an annoyed cobra, I had an epiphany that would later serve me well on Wall Street: the most promising paths aren't always the obvious ones — they're the routes that quietly keep you alive while everyone else is busy with their cameras and guided tours.

That same principle is quietly guiding Hims & Hers Health (HIMS) right now.

While the market obsesses over their new Wegovy partnership with Novo Nordisk (NVO), sending HIMS stock jumping 25% to $35, savvy investors should look deeper.

The company isn't suddenly becoming a weight-loss play — they're eliminating doubt and positioning themselves at the center of healthcare's digital transformation.

This reminds me of a pattern I've observed across decades of tracking successful businesses and leaders. The most effective ones don't chase trends. Instead, they position themselves to win regardless of which way the wind blows.

I witnessed this firsthand during a memorable interview with Deng Xiaoping back in the late 70s. Despite the chaotic economic landscape he inherited, his focus remained steadfastly on fundamentals rather than fleeting opportunities.

That's precisely the Hims playbook with these GLP-1 partnerships.

Fascinatingly, they're charging $599 monthly for Wegovy — $100 more than Novo's direct offering.

In my decades managing hedge fund portfolios, I've learned that pricing power is the ultimate business aphrodisiac. It signals you have something people genuinely value enough to pay a premium for.

Wall Street, in its infinite wisdom, is once again squinting at the wrong spreadsheet.

Hims projects $2.35 billion in 2025 revenue, with $725 million from weight management alone — a forecast that completely excluded branded GLP-1s. Their core business in sexual health, dermatology, and mental wellness already generates $1.2 billion annually.

That's 83% of revenue from decidedly non-injectable sources!

Their growth figures are impressive, too: 60% projected sales growth and 70% adjusted EBITDA growth. Yet HIMS trades at just 3.5x 2025 revenue estimates.

If I pitched you a company growing this fast in any other sector at that multiple, you'd think I was selling oceanfront property in Nebraska.

But what truly separates Hims from competitors is retention. Their internal data shows 70% patient retention after 12 weeks, compared to 42% in standard clinical settings. Their users interact with providers three times more frequently in the first month and five times more over three months.

That's not marginally better — it's an entirely different universe of care.

Like those guerrilla fighters I once interviewed in Southeast Asia, who held territory against superior forces by knowing the terrain better — Hims isn’t just in the healthcare war, they know exactly where to strike.

The stock previously touched $70 after posting 95% year-over-year growth in Q4. It retreated on fears about GLP-1 access that were largely imaginary.

Now it's climbing again on news that merely confirms what company executives already knew: their business model doesn't hinge on any single medication.

This situation reminds me of trading Japanese equities in the late '80s—watching rational people make irrational decisions based on incomplete information. The market is simultaneously overvaluing the importance of GLP-1s while undervaluing Hims' overall growth trajectory.

With $300 million in projected 2025 adjusted EBITDA (13% margins), expanding to 20% as they scale, HIMS at 27x EBITDA represents the kind of opportunity that makes me sit up straighter in my ergonomic chair. That multiple would make perfect sense for a company growing at half this rate.

What's more telling than spreadsheets, though, is customer loyalty. During my years managing portfolios worth more than some small nations' GDPs, I developed a simple litmus test: if a company disappeared tomorrow, would its customers feel inconvenienced or devastated?

Hims has clearly crossed into "devastated" territory for its growing user base - the kind of emotional moat that Warren Buffett probably dreams about between bites of his McDonald's breakfast.

For those hunting increasingly endangered species - growth with reasonable valuation, momentum with sustainable model, actual substance beneath the hype - HIMS offers a compelling specimen. These GLP-1 deals aren't the main story; they're just the latest chapter in a much longer narrative about healthcare's digital transformation.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from diving shipwrecks in Truk Lagoon to decoding market trends from Tokyo to New York — it’s that the journey tells you more than any single milestone ever could.

This one looks increasingly profitable for those with the patience to stay the course.