The startups betting you can quit GLP-1s and stay thin

Some weight-loss companies are marketing Ozempic and Wegovy as a short-term holy grail. Doctors say it doesn't work that way.

- Jessica Mathews and Alena Botros

"Ozempic doesn't have to be forever."

It's a line that may appear on your social media feeds if you've googled how to lose weight, or read up on Hollywood's latest miracle drug: Ozempic. The pink ad, posted as part of a campaign on Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook in recent months by the $3.7 billion weight-loss startup Noom, shows the drug's blue syringe pen moving back and forth below a timeline that doesn't extend beyond a year.

What the ad promises is nothing short of the holy grail of the $90 billion U.S. diet industry, the cure that Americans, especially American women, have sought for generations and are willing to pay dearly for: a new, more slender you, hassle-free. Quick weight loss, then a return to your familiar life-thinner, healthier, and happier.

It's no wonder that, since this new class of appetite-curbing GLP-1 medications, including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound, burst into public consciousness, nearly $1 billion of venture capital dollars have been injected into the growing sector of weight-loss companies, which is now awash with startups prescribing the drugs, according to PitchBook data from the past year and a half.

It's true that these medicines appear to be startlingly effective for weight loss, a game changer for many people with obesity. But the second part of what some startups prescribing these medications promise-the "doesn't have to be forever" part, or the notion that these drugs can "reset" your metabolism-is far more contentious. As the drug manufacturers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have made exceedingly clear, these medicines are intended as long-term commitments, like medication for high blood pressure. They are not meant to be taken temporarily. Indeed, seven doctors who spoke with Fortune say the preponderance of medical trials so far show that, generally, people who stop taking the drugs regain most of the weight they’ve lost within about a year.