On March 4, WW International Inc. (aka WeightWatchers) announced that it is acquiring a digital health company called Sequence, which offers telehealth prescriptions for the appetite-suppressing drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.
Getting into the weight loss drug space is a bit of a pivot for WeightWatchers. The past several years have seen a rise in the visibility of body positivity, from Victoria’s Secret booking plus-sized models to a Cosmopolitan cover story featuring women of a variety of sizes along with the tagline “This is healthy!” Stars like Lizzo, Melanie Lynskey, and Nicola Coughlan have all recently used their influence to remind us that skinny is not synonymous with healthy; the relationship between weight and health is complicated.
WeightWatchers had tried to adapt to this trend. It rebranded in 2018 to WW International, saying on its website, “WW welcomes anyone who wants to build healthy habits,” and “We work for everyone: Our app is now configured to help people reach all their wellness goals, not just weight loss.” They stripped the word “diet” from the ”About” page on their website, and told investors that their longtime ticker symbol, WTW, now stood for “Wellness That Works.” Now, with the Sequence acquisition, it seems at first glance like WeightWatchers is merely following the next trend.
After the WW rebrand, critics didn’t really buy the idea that WeightWatchers had changed its core mission, though its subscriber base did grow. Then the pandemic hit. WeightWatchers switched from in-person classes to digital subscriptions, which never brought in as much revenue—and then faded in popularity once lockdowns ended. Their stock sank 30 percent in 2021 and their CEO stepped down. Now, under new CEO Sima Sistani, WeightWatchers is back to its old branding. The “About WW” page says, “WeightWatchers is for people who want more from weight loss.”
Offering prescriptions for drugs that have quickly become the status drug du jour could be a particularly cynical way to attract younger users and hook them into digital subscriptions that they will be loath to abandon (going off the drugs can cause weight gain).
That is exactly the direction we might expect from a company that spent the ’80s and early ’90s promising miracle results—and then spent 20 years complying with the terms of a settlement agreement for false advertising. And WeightWatchers has indeed been trying to expand their audience: In 2019, they bought Kurbo, a children’s weight loss app. (Then, they dropped the company last year after they were sued by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly harvesting minors’ data without parental consent.)
But there is actually reason to believe that WeightWatchers is returning to their focus on weight with a slightly more nuanced (and adult-oriented) approach. With the Sequence acquisition, the company is positioning itself to support customers who already use semaglutides like Ozempic and Wegovy, and to help get these drugs into the hands of the patient population they were intended for: people managing diabetes and those looking to lose weight as part of a doctor-recommended health plan.
“We have no interest in prescribing medications to those who are trying to lose 10 pounds for a reunion,” WW’s chief scientific officer, Gary Foster, told the Wall Street Journal. That seems to be true: I do not meet the Food and Drug Administration’s eligibility requirements for these drugs, but I tried to get a prescription through Sequence anyway; it already offers subscriptions for around 24,000 users, who pay $99 a month for the privilege of having a doctor virtually manage their semaglutide prescriptions. I offered up my weight, height, and medical history in a quick online form. Sequence did not offer me drugs.
That kind of screening around semaglutides is important. Wegovy, which was approved by the FDA in 2021, is designed for weight loss, whereas Ozempic is designed for diabetes management. Wegovy became even more popular than drugmakers expected (including among people who are not medically eligible), causing a shortage. Since then, doctors have been prescribing Ozempic off-label for weight loss; in Australia, the government asked doctors to prioritize diabetes patients. It’s not clear how Sequence has handled the ups and downs of these shortages, or how they might handle future shortages under WeightWatchers’ ownership. But either way, WeightWatchers certainly has plenty of users who might be interested in—and eligible for—prescriptions for both drugs.
WeightWatchers’ customers skew on the older side; the typical WeightWatchers user, as of 2018, was a woman in her 50s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 11 percent of U.S. adults have diabetes, and over 40 percent have obesity.
This is the group that drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are actually designed to serve, and WeightWatchers already reaches them. WW’s healthy eating and exercise program is already recognized by the CDC as an evidence-based diabetes prevention program; exactly the kind of resource that doctors recommend alongside drugs like Ozempic.
And these drugs—while new, expensive, and with downsides—do appear to help some people, like Paul Ford, who shared his experience with Mounjaro in Wired, and Ron Passmore, who spoke with Slate. Ozempic helped Passmore lose 100 pounds. More importantly, it helped him control the blood sugar spikes and weight gain associated with long-term insulin use for diabetes.
In announcing the acquisition, WeightWatchers also said that they will offer new eating and exercise advice tailored for people taking these drugs. In their annual report to shareholders this year, they leaned into the connection between weight management and health. Last year, they described themselves as “the world’s leading commercial weight management program.” This year, they focused on their “science-based, clinically effective weight loss and weight management program.”
While the line between “weight loss for health outcomes” and “weight loss because of societal pressure” is incredibly muddy, presumably this acquisition could streamline health management for a meaningful chunk of WeightWatchers’ customers. It makes sense to manage treatments holistically. It also makes sense financially for WeightWatchers to try to take a cut.
