Hims & Hers CEO No Longer A Billionaire After Novo Nordisk Deal Collapses
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Hims & Hers cofounder and CEO Andrew Dudum dropped out of Forbes' billionaire ranks on Monday – less than two months after joining the three-comma-club, in May. Dudum, 36, lost more than $400 million in wealth in a single trading day, after shares of his telehealth firm, known for its hair loss and erectile dysfunction pills, fell by 35%. Forbes estimates Dudum is now worth closer to $950 million.
The sudden selloff came after drugmaker Novo Nordisk's announcement early Monday that it is ending a short-lived partnership with Hims & Hers to sell Wegovy, Novo Nordisk's popular weight loss drug. It was this partnership, announced on April 29, and the ensuing stock rally, that first made Dudum a billionaire. Hims & Hers' market capitalization more than doubled in the weeks following the announcement, and the company ended last week worth a near all-time high of $14.4 billion. The business' market capitalization fell to $9.4 billion on Monday. Dudum owns more than 8% of the company plus options to acquire another 1%.
In a press release, Novo Nordisk accused Hims & Hers of using 'deceptive marketing' to sell Wegovy knockoffs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had temporarily allowed companies – including Hims & Hers – to manufacture and sell compounded versions of the drug starting early last year due to a shortage of the key ingredient, semaglutide. But the agency moved to end the sale of copycat versions this February.
Hims & Hers 'has failed to adhere to the law which prohibits mass sales of compounded drugs under the false guise of 'personalization',' said Novo Nordisk in its press release. (Compounded drugs are custom-made versions that don't have FDA approval.) The drug giant also accused the startup of endangering public safety and said that Novo Nordisk's own investigation found that manufacturers of compounded weight loss drugs were importing ingredients from China.
Asked for comment on Novo Nordisk's allegations, Hims & Hers' director of corporate communications, Abigail Reisinger-Moley, pointed Forbes to a Monday afternoon X post by Dudum, in which he accused the Dutch drugmaker of 'misleading the public' and 'anti-competitive demands that infringe on the independent decision making of providers.' Reisinger-Moley added in an email to Forbes: 'Compounding, when done responsibly in the U.S. and in accordance with U.S. law, plays an important role in expanding access to care, especially for personalized weight loss treatments when individual patient needs require a tailored approach.'
Hims & Hers argues it still has the right to produce compounded versions of weight loss drugs even without shortages, due to the 'clinical necessity' of its offerings. 'We enable personalized treatment when commercially available options don't meet individual patient needs, whether in dosages, administration, or the need for additional ingredients,' Dudum claimed in an X post in February after the FDA's crackdown.
The FDA did not immediately respond to Forbes ' request for comment on this claim. However, the agency has warned against unapproved treatments that it says can be 'risky for patients' and said it received reports of 1,000 'adverse events associated' with compounded weight loss drugs as of April 2025.
On Monday, Dudum announced on X that his company will continue to sell Wegovy, though it's unclear how, since Hims & Hers no longer has a relationship with Novo Nordisk. (Reisinger-Moley did not respond to a follow-up question from Forbes about how the company plans to sell brand-name Wegovy).
Nearly all of Dudum's wealth is tied up in his stake in Hims & Hers. Forbes estimates the former billionaire also has about $100 million in wealth from selling shares of the company, with more than half of these stock sales taking place since May 2024, when Hims & Hers began to sell weight loss drugs under the temporary FDA allowance and the company's stock began soaring. (Dudum and a Hims & Hers spokesperson did not respond to Forbes' request for comment on his net worth.)
A serial entrepreneur, Dudum cofounded Hims & Hers in 2017 with partners at his startup studio, Atomic Ventures. Initially started as a men's wellness platform offering easy-access prescriptions for things like hair loss and erectile dysfunction, Hims expanded into birth control and other products for women in 2018. The company renamed itself Hims & Hers in 2021 when it went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
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