Ethical and Regulatory Issues with Weight Loss Companies

Though some find success with their programs, what kind of ethical and regulatory problems for weight loss companies like WW, Noom, and Ro present?

So, this is a new thing for us. First, let me just say I think if we can pair medication, with a service, or a service with a device, or digital technology around the medication, to help the patient be more successful in their disease journey, we should do it, especially with something like obesity, right? The question is, can we do it safely? So right now, you have certain organizations that are operating these types of companies that you mentioned, that there really isn't an agency in the United States that's set up to, to regulate them. And so, pharmaceuticals is very heavily regulated medical device very heavily regulated, pharmacy, very heavily regulated, physicians very heavily regulated, right, I think we can go on with manufacturing and pharmaceuticals very heavily regulated. But right now, these organizations kind of fall between the cracks of the different agencies that are in place to maintain patient safety. And we heard, you know, Dr. Carter, from the FDA say, look, this isn't really in our purview, this isn't a mandate or something that we really have action to be we don't have a mandate to take action on, nor do we have authority. And we hear that as well as we inquire on our own side, from other different federal agencies. So, I think this will be something that needs to be shaken out over time to make sure that we keep patients’ safety number one in everything that we're doing. That's the number one obligation of any company or person in the medical field.