Episode Summary
In this episode of Signals, Nick Mazing welcomes Sara Stahl, Director of Research, Healthcare, at AlphaSense Expert Insights. They explore the new generation of weight loss drugs, a hot topic that’s making waves everywhere.
The conversation focuses on the efficacy of these drugs and the massive market potential they hold. Sara highlights the rising obesity epidemic and the potential these drugs have in combating it. She discusses the mechanism of action of the GLP-1 agonists, as well as the pipeline for several companies. Sara also covers the negative side effects of these drugs, the strong demand by consumers, as well as the effects on obesity-related comorbidities.
The discussion also touches on the potential impacts of these drugs on related industries. From bariatric surgery to diabetes devices, the ripple effects are far-reaching. The episode wraps up with a look at the challenges and opportunities these drugs present for insurance coverage.
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Guest-at-a-Glance
💡 Name: Sara Stahl
💡What she does: Director of Research, Healthcare at AlphaSense Expert Insights
💡Company: AlphaSense Expert Insight
💡 Where to find Sara: LinkedIn
Key Insights
The Rising Demand for Weight Loss Drugs
Sara and Nick talk about the growing interest in weight loss drugs, especially among those outside the healthcare sector. These drugs, such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro, are gaining popularity due to their efficacy in combating obesity. The demand is so high that people are going to great lengths to get them, including traveling to other countries. This surge in demand is also giving rise to telehealth companies selling these drugs directly to consumers.
The Impact of Weight Loss Drugs on Related Industries
Sara elaborates on the potential impacts of these weight-loss drugs on related industries. For instance, bariatric surgery could become obsolete if these drugs prove to be highly effective. Other areas potentially affected include cardiovascular stents, statins, insulin pumps, and continuous glucose monitors for diabetes patients. However, she also highlights that it’s too early to write off these players in the healthcare sector.
The Challenge of Insurance Coverage for Weight Loss Drugs
Our interlocutors touch on the challenges of insurance coverage for these weight-loss drugs. Despite their potential to control severe comorbid conditions and lower overall healthcare spending, the short-term cost to cover these drugs is high. Sara suggests that linking obesity to other comorbid conditions in studies could be a strategy to facilitate insurance coverage.
Episode Highlights
Introduction and Background of Sara Stahl
Timestamp: [00:01:00]
The episode begins with host Nick Mazing introducing Sara Stahl. Sara shares her extensive experience in financial services and healthcare, emphasizing the value of conducting expert interviews. She believes that these interviews provide unique insights that differ from management views or consensus opinions.
“I’ve personally conducted hundreds of expert interviews myself. And so I really know the value of doing live interviews, talking with people who work in the industry. You hear things you would not otherwise, and you can hear things that are different than what management is saying or what the consensus view is.”
The Rising Popularity of Weight Loss Drugs
Timestamp: [00:02:19]
Sara discusses the increasing popularity of weight loss drugs. She mentions that these drugs are highly effective and the market for them is enormous. Sara also highlights the obesity epidemic and the potential of these drugs to combat it.
“The bottom line is these drugs are highly efficacious. And the market is just huge. The TAM is huge, no pun intended. It’s hard to stay away from these puns for obesity, drugs. And really, these drugs are still in the very early stages, so it is really hard to overstate the opportunity in the obesity market.”
The Impact on Related Industries
Timestamp: [00:27:02]
The conversation moves to the potential impacts of weight loss drugs on related industries. Sara suggests that if these drugs prove to be highly effective, they could make certain treatments, like bariatric surgery, obsolete. She also mentions the potential impact on diabetes devices.
“But that’s kind of the hope that some of these things do become obsolete. Insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors for diabetes patients. Those are often cited as under pressure by these drugs or could be.”
The Disruption of Business Models
Timestamp: [00:25:31]
Sara discusses how obesity drugs could disrupt other business models. She cites the example of Jenny Craig, a diet lifestyle chain that went into liquidation, and Weight Watchers, which purchased a telehealth company to prescribe GLP-1s directly.
“This is just one of those times where you’ve got an innovation, a technological innovation that disrupts not even within their own industry, but outside of their own industry. And that is why, another reason everyone’s talking about these.”
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Nick Mazing: Hello and welcome. You’re listening to Signals by AlphaSense, and I’m your host, Nick Mazing. Today we welcome Sarah Stahl, director of Research Healthcare at Stream AlphaSense Expert Insight Solution. If you’re not familiar with it, the solution covers a wide range of expert insight services, including an extensive expert interview.
[00:00:21] Transcript library integrated with all other document sets, like broker research filings and news inside the AlphaSense platform, alongside with co services monthly sector newsletters. And Sarah says, great. I love it, webinars and more. Sarah, welcome. And can you tell us a little bit more about your yourself and about your work?
[00:00:41] Sara Stahl: Sure Nick, thanks so much for having me here. As you said, I am the Director of Research with Stream. That means I’m responsible for generating and curating the expert transcript library as it relates to healthcare interviews. And I have 17 years of sell side experience in the financial services industry.
[00:01:00] The last seven have been covering healthcare and I’ve personally conducted hundreds of expert interviews myself. And so I really know the value of doing live interviews, talking with people who work in the industry. You hear things you would not. Otherwise, I think deeply think about and you can hear things that are different than what management is saying or what the consensus view is, and so I really value that first person interview aspect into the research process.
[00:01:32] Nick Mazing: So when we were discussing potential topics for the episode, weight loss drugs were top of mind for both of us. Certainly, they’re generating a lot of news. It’s almost unavoidable. Even if you don’t watch tv, there is always a headline with some celebrity every day Lost 50 pounds, 30 pounds, six, you know, and so on.
[00:01:51] So can you help us dig a little bit deeper into the, um, so that we can understand what is behind that.
[00:02:00] Sara Stahl: You’re absolutely right. It seems like everybody is talking about these drugs. In fact, um, one of our stream experts and endocrinologist is saying he is now the most popular guy at any party. That he is just getting inundated with people who are asking him about these drugs. Uh, the bottom line is these drugs are highly efficacious.
[00:02:19] And the market is just huge. The TAM is huge, no pun intended. It’s hard to stay away from these puns for obesity, drugs, and really these drugs are still in the very early stages, so it is really hard to overstate the opportunity in the obesity market.
[00:02:37] Nick Mazing: I mean, how big do you think the addressable market is?
[00:02:41] Sara Stahl: Well, it, it, it’s big. Um, you know, like you said, these celebrity endorsements for the cosmetic benefits are really grabbing the headlines. Supply shortages are grabbing the headlines. Also, who’s gonna pay for these drugs? That’s grabbing the headlines. But let’s not forget, obesity is an epidemic. I mean, It’s associated with more than 200 comorbidities.
[00:03:05] Things like heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, cancer. Um, also, just to put some numbers on it, the c d C estimates that 50% of US adults will be obese by 2030. Today we’re in the low 40%, 1975, that percentage was 10%. That’s the US globally. One in eight people are estimated to be obese by 2030. So you can see how big of a problem this is and the trajectory on it is huge.
[00:03:41] And then to underscore how persistent the challenges are with obesity, the standard of care with obesity is diet and exercise. But for most people, any weight that’s lost is regained within 12 months. And it’s not just because people fall off their diets or they stop exercising, like our bodies adjust to weight loss, and it becomes more stubborn and more difficult, and so it’s a, it’s a very intractable problem.
[00:04:13] Nick Mazing: So can you tell us a bit more about the drug themselves, the drugs themselves, because these are actually a new type of drugs that have not existed before.
[00:04:24] Sara Stahl: They are a new type of drug and what’s interesting is, People know the names of these drugs. People who like don’t even use them. People who don’t necessarily follow healthcare. Like we hear about Ozempic, we hear about Wegovy Mojaro is the new one. So these drugs are all GLP-1 receptor agonists. That’s the category.
[00:04:46] Um, it stands for glucagon like peptide receptor agonists. Really just simply put, that just means. These drugs, they mimic the GLP-1 gut hormone and that gut hormone controls our appetite. So there’s really kind of two things happening. One, it will reduce your appetite while you’re eating, so it’ll tell your body like you’re full sooner, and then it will also empty these, these drugs will empty your gut more slowly, your stomach more slowly, so you stay satisfied longer.
[00:05:21] And those two things together. Coupled with like the, the insulin secretion that it regulates, that helps control blood sugars. Very important for diabetes, obviously. Put all those things together and it’s been a way that’s been very successful at controlling, um, appetite. Now, Ozempic was the first of these drugs to hit the market and technically Ozempic.
[00:05:47] This is Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1. The, the generic name for it is Semaglutide. This first came to market for type two diabetes and Ozempic is F D A approved for type two diabetes and that that approval happened in 2017. There was a previous generation technology from Novo Nordisk. They were looking for something that had longer duration for type two diabetes control, and found that with semaglutide and received F D A approval for the drug in 2017 for type two diabetes.
[00:06:19] Now the weight loss benefit that accompanied this was so meaningful that the f, you know, that they applied for F D a approval for obesity and received that in 2021, and the name of that drug is Wegovy. It is the same drug. It’s just that Ozempic is the approved drug for type two diabetes. Wegovy is for obesity.
[00:06:40] I will add that the obesity drug does come in higher dosages, so there is a difference, but the drug itself is the same and the mechanism of action is the same. So that’s Novo Nordisk’s path. The other big player right now is Eli Lilly, their drug, the one that is approved is Mounjaro, and that’s also approved for type two diabetes, and they are looking to get F D a approval for the same drug.
[00:07:08] For obesity, and they’re hoping to do that by the end of the year. Now, the generic name for this drug is TIR Peptide, and this is different than Novo’s drug in that it is a, um, it has, it’s a double receptor agonist, which means it’s affecting two gut hormones where Ozempic, Wegovys is one gut hormone, and the result is they’ve actually had.
[00:07:36] Better efficacy with this double agonist. Um, just put some numbers on that. Monjero, 21% weight loss in their clinical trial versus 15% for Wegovy. And also Mounjaro has shown to be better at reducing blood sugar, so controlling blood sugar. So it’s proven to be better. And then similarly, the expectation will be that when it’s approved for obesity, that we’ll continue to see that improvement.
[00:08:06] The last thing I just wanna say about these GLP-1 is that these drugs are especially helpful to diabetic patients who are obese because insulin itself can cause weight gain. So you’re taking insulin to control your diabetes. That leads to insulin resistance. The more you take, your body becomes more resistant.
[00:08:26] As you become more resistant, you gain more weight, and it’s just this cycle you can’t really break, and the GLP ones are breaking that vicious cycle. And that is just an extra benefit for diabetic patients who face multiple co-morbidities. Um, this is just a way to break that cycle.
[00:08:47] Nick Mazing: So it goes from, you know, the old standard of care where the weight is regained within 12 months to something that drops you, you know, 15, 20%. That’s very impressive, obviously, but what are the downsides?
[00:09:01] Sara Stahl: Downsides. There are downsides. First of all, it’s a weekly subcutaneous injection. These are not orals at this point, and for some people, some people are needle phobic. Um, it, it’s also just an unpleasant experience, I would say for, for some people to inject themselves. So our dosing, um, is one issue. Loss of lean muscle mass is another, that in the process of losing weight, you can lose this lean muscle mass, and that’s obviously important, especially for elderly people to maintain their lean muscle mass.
[00:09:38] Here’s a really important thing, the weight is regained upon discontinuation of these drugs. That’s what’s been found. And so really, you’re gonna be on these things for life for a long time, and we don’t really know what that looks like. We don’t have data that show what does this look like to be on these drugs for a lifetime.
[00:09:58] Um, and then of course, um, falling off of them has, uh, issues for implications for insurance and that kind of thing. Also, they don’t work for some patients. Then side effects, they’re gastro gastrointestinal issues. The GI side effects are pretty rough for some people. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. I think these have been well documented.
[00:10:20] Um, but what’s interesting, this is where, you know, just listening to a stream transcript can really drive home points. Um, one of our endocrinologists was saying that even though these side effects are very real, that his patients are more willing to put up with them. Then would otherwise be the case because of that weight loss benefit that they just see the R O I.
[00:10:42] So there seems to be, at least according to this expert, more willingness to put up with some pretty nasty side effects because the weight gain benefits.
[00:10:53] Nick Mazing: Now, uh, the. Surprise popularity of those drugs given the weight loss benefits led to supply shortages. Can you discuss those?
[00:11:09] Sara Stahl: Yes, you’re absolutely right that these things have taken off like wildfire. Like you said, there’s been so much buzz on social media, word of mouth, the celebrities. You know, the visibility of celebrities losing weight has just generated so much demand, um, that it’s created shortages, and the shortage has been going on since last year.
[00:11:31] And, and, and then in, in May of this year, Novo Nordisk reduced the supply of Wegovy starter doses. So by limiting the supply of starter doses, that’s basically saying they’re limiting the number of new patients who can start on Wegovy. And they did that in order to maintain supply for existing users because again, once you go off these drugs, you will regain weight.
[00:11:52] So it’s important to continue the drugs. So that’s what they’ve done. And they also dial back on their marketing. Um, they postponed a national ad campaign. They changed some of the, um, Couponing that they were doing to physicians to generate interest. So they’ve made some changes. Um, interestingly, the supply issues are even affecting Novo’s, previous generation drug.
[00:12:18] Now. It’s not nearly as effective, but just the demand for the whole category has gone nuts. Even things that weren’t so attractive before are now, and those drugs are in short supply. So, uh, I think that’s really interesting. Now, Lilly’s got shortages as well and both Lilly and Novo are expanding their manufacturing capacity to address this.
[00:12:42] And, but that’s gonna take some time, obviously. And I, I think what’s notable is we’re seeing these shortages even though insurance coverage is not widespread. So a lot of people are willing to pay out of pocket for these drugs. They’re not cheap. The price tag will run you a thousand dollars a month up to 1700 a month.
[00:13:04] And, um, we even have stream experts telling us that people are going to Canada and Mexico to get the drugs. Um, another stream anecdote that kind of drives home the point about how pervasive the interest is in this, uh, you said one of his colleagues. Um, this is a physician said, Hey, my sister’s getting married.
[00:13:25] She needs to drop a few pounds before her wedding. Can we get her some wavy? And he said, she is not that overweight. She looks great. No, this is not the target population. So people want these drugs and, uh, they’re willing to go to lengths to get them. This also interestingly, is giving rise to tele telehealth companies selling these drugs direct to consumers.
[00:13:53] And what’s really interesting is some of these D T C companies are sponsoring TikTok influencers and TikToks actually cracking down on this now. But there are so many companies that are going direct to consumer, they’re cropping up everywhere. Companies that that weren’t. That are pivoting in order to offer these drugs.
[00:14:16] Um, and then also compounding pharmacies. That’s a way to get these drugs if you can’t get your hands on the um, brands. But some of these very questionable operations, they’re attracting regulatory scrutiny. It really wanna be careful about using a compounding pharmacy, in my opinion and our expert’s opinion for these drugs.
[00:14:39] Nick Mazing: Let’s double click on the insurance coverage, uh, uh, situation that you, that you just mentioned. What is happening today and what is the outlook? I.
[00:14:50] Sara Stahl: Yeah, the insurance is really a tough issue. Um, we’ve got the possibility of. You know, when you reduce obesity of really controlling these very severe co comorbid conditions, and then, you know, in the process of doing that, the vision is that we’ll lower our overall healthcare spending as people do not need, you know, cardiovascular procedures.
[00:15:17] They prevent cancers. So many benefits, right? But the short term cost to cover these drugs, Is really high. I told you about the price tag, you know, 1000 to 1700 bucks a month. And then again, look at the addressable market and the expenditure is huge. And then think about it. What if your patients stop using it and you’ve invested all this money in something that isn’t gonna give you that long-term benefit?
[00:15:47] And for people, many people, those GI side effects I talked about. Enough for people to stop using them. So I think there’s a lot of tension here about how is insurance gonna react. Now, Medicare, if we look at government insurance, Medicare does not cover obesity, drugs. Um, there is some movement with and legislators, uh, trying to change that.
[00:16:14] We’ll see what happens. Medicaid, that’s a state by state issue. About one third of states are covering these drugs with Medicaid. So not a lot of government coverage right now on the commercial side. This is kind of interesting. Lots of companies have been covering weight loss drugs, like, because this just wasn’t much of their budget before.
[00:16:38] Uh, there just wasn’t that much demand and now they’re just getting hit with this huge demand and they’re trying to figure out what to do about it. I think I saw somewhere that like, nor, um, No, no, weight loss drug prescriptions increased like 600% in the first six months of this year. Um, just massive.
[00:16:58] And so these commercial insurers and employers are trying to figure out what to do. A lot of them are putting in restrictions like, okay, I. You will not be eligible for these drugs until you try diet or exercise first. Cheaper drugs first, which we know, know, do not work as well. Um, establishing thresholds for B m I Body Mass index, so kind of trying to put in gates before people can go ahead and, and, and have added these drugs.
[00:17:26] Interestingly, a stream expert was talking about how they have patients who. Have done well enough with these drugs that their b m I has dropped to the point where now insurance isn’t covering them. So that’s obviously not gonna work because we know if you discontinue these drugs, you’re gonna regain the weight.
[00:17:45] So issues, right? Uh, lots of things to work out. The last thing I’ll say about this, about, um, employ employer benefits, um, the, you know, the question is will employers feel pressured? To cover these drugs, to retain employees or to even attract employees. And I think I’ve seen some surveys that say that, you know, some percentage, a pretty sizable percentage, 40, 50% or something of, um, patients who qualify for these drugs would stay with an employer to maintain the coverage even if they were unhappy in their job.
[00:18:24] So there, there’s gonna be some pressure coming, I think, from the workforce on this. Here. I said that was the last thing I was gonna say. There’s one last thing I wanna say on this, and that’s that these companies, these drug manufacturers, recognize that linking obesity to other comorbid conditions is the best way to get insurance approval.
[00:18:47] So if right now Novo and Lilly have studies underway linking obesity to cardiovascular disease, Linking obesity to fatty liver disease. And so if you can kind of get into it that way, again, the belief is that the coverage, um, will be much easier to get, uh, on the, the fatty liver disease front. This is just kind of an interesting little side note, but uh, a expert was explaining how fatty liver disease can exist in people who are not obese.
[00:19:19] And so there is just like an expansion. Into a small, you know, relatively small population, uh, that would not otherwise qualify. So, um, apparently, um, uh, this expert said that a lot of people with Southeastern, um, Asian, let’s redo that. Sorry, that didn’t come across so well. Should we redo the whole thing from the question or what would be best?
[00:19:54] Nick Mazing: Uh, you can start just the fatty liver part. It’s fine.
[00:19:59] Sara Stahl: Okay, let’s do
[00:20:00] Nick Mazing: You, you, you had, uh, linking obesity to co to comorbid conditions. So
[00:20:04] Sara Stahl: let’s do Okay. Thanks Nick. Okay. I told you that was the last thing I was gonna say. Actually, I have one more last thing to say on this topic, and that’s that. The, these drug companies are very motivated to figure out how to link obesity to comorbid conditions in their studies. So for instance, we’ve got studies underway that are looking at the connection between the obesity, drugs, and cardiovascular disease, the obesity, drugs, and fatty liver disease.
[00:20:35] And if we can demonstrate improvements in these comorbid conditions, the belief is that it’ll be much easier for insurance to cover these things. Just an interesting stream anecdote here about fatty liver disease is that one of the stream experts was explaining how there are patients. Um, who have fatty liver disease and who are not necessarily obese.
[00:20:56] And while this is a relatively small group compared to the overall like obese population, it’s still another group in, in to which these drugs would apply. So we’re expanding kind of the market even further with another group, um, that has fatty liver diseases, not necessarily obese. So, um, just kind of an interesting side note, but I would just say all in all, insurance is definitely an area to watch here.
[00:21:22] Nick Mazing: So we’ve been discussing drugs that are already in the market, whether they’re being used off label or not. Um, what is coming down the pike in, in the diet drug space?
[00:21:38] Sara Stahl: Yeah. A lot is the short answer. We’ve got, you know, we talked about lily and Novo right now. Right. But we’ve got like 50 plus companies that have pipeline projects and then there’s like another 50 that are just really early stage companies, and we really kind of break them into two categories. There are those who are pursuing GLP-1 based drugs.
[00:22:02] Again, what Novo and Lily have on the market. So that mechanism of action. And then there, there are companies that are pursuing and, and some are doing both pursuing other mechanisms of action. And so let’s just start with this GLP-1 based group. Um, other big names getting involved are Ingelheim. You’ve got Viking, Amgens working on a once monthly injection.
[00:22:29] Um, meanwhile, Lily and Novo are doing their own thing. Lily’s got a triple agonist ide. They actually published results at the American Diabetes Association conference in June. Very impressive finding that the weight loss is even greater with this triple agonist than the double agonist. Again, Lily’s got the double agonist.
[00:22:52] Novo Nordisk has the single agonist in both cases, this triple agonist from Lilly is proving to outperform in terms of weight loss and the side effects appear to be no worse. Um, and then also the, uh, benefit for blood sugar and diabetes is also superior for the ide. So that’s gonna be an important development and will likely, you know, just.
[00:23:17] Cannibalize, uh, Lily’s own business with the double agonist. But that’s how these, that’s how all these drugs and companies work. They’re always looking to put out the, the, the better thing. Um, well the, the next big category within, within GLP ones is orals, right? So we talked about this being a a, a weekly subcutaneous injection.
[00:23:39] Orals are, Certainly better for people who are needle phobic, but these would be daily oral orals. But they’re also convenient. They’re much, they don’t require patient education, which is required for the injection. And when you’re in a busy family practice. Office clinic and you don’t have much margin in terms of time and actually financial margin and you wanna keep patients moving through the door to just be able to prescribe an oral is much easier than having to do patient education.
[00:24:09] So there’s a lot of benefits for the oral and we’ve got Lilly pursuing orals, we’ve got Viking pursuing Oral Pfizer, big name obviously pursuing the oral. And so we’ll have to see what, what happens. There’s others developing orals. Orals as well, but those are kind of the big ones. So that’s kinda the GLP one front.
[00:24:29] Let me just pivot over to the other mechanisms of action. There’s a lot of them. I, I don’t think we necessarily have to go through all of them, but the key thing is these other mechanisms of action could solve some of the GLP-1 shortfalls We talked about like better tolerability. So could we eliminate some of these GI issues?
[00:24:50] Um, could we maintain the lean muscle mass? Could we have longer duration? And, um, we’ve got AstraZeneca pursuing Novo. Novo, Lily are pursuing these other mechanisms of actions and then a lot of other names as well.
[00:25:08] Nick Mazing: Finally, let’s talk about how Obesity drugs are disrupting or could disrupt other business models. For example, very recently, Jenny Craig, which is a, uh, kind of a diet lifestyle chain, uh, went into liquidation. Uh, what, what do you think about that, that specific area of the effect of these drugs?
[00:25:31] Sara Stahl: Yeah, I, I think this is really interesting. I mean, this, this is just one of those times where you’ve got an innovation, a technological innovation that. Disrupts not even within their own industry, but outside of their own industry. And that is why, another reason everyone’s talking about these. So yes, we’ve got the Jenny Craig example.
[00:25:50] Weight Watchers recently purchased a telehealth company so that they could start prescribing the GLP ones themselves directly. They obviously recognized the threat to their business model. Other companies with, you know, within healthcare we’ve got. Sleep apnea devices are kind of cited as, um, potentially at risk from these drugs.
[00:26:11] There’s just a high correlation between obesity and sleep apnea. So we’ve got companies like ResMed and Phillips that make C P A P devices. They’re also companies like Inspire that and Levo Nova that make neuromodulation devices that control sleep apnea. So there’s been a lot of questions about, you know, how at risk are these companies? Other things like bariatric surgery, uh, this is kind of commonly recognized as, um, being at risk. And, and some of you even speculated that these, these weight loss drugs could make bariatric surgery obsolete altogether. Um, things like cardiovascular stents and statins. Could be affected. Again, we’ll just have to see, um, how effective these drugs are and how long people stay on them.
[00:27:02] But that’s kind of the hope that some of these things do become obsolete. Insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors for, for diabetes patients, those are have, are often cited as under pressure by these drugs or could be. Um, obviously as people are able to control their weight, they’re less likely to get diabetes or if they have diabetes.
[00:27:24] Um, You know, it, it becomes much more manageable with these drugs and they may not need to be regularly monitoring with a continuous glucose monitor. And then in case of an insulin pump, actually the insulin pump injects the insulin automatically. So those would be two areas At the same time, I don’t think we can call for the death of the diabetes devices at this point.
[00:27:45] It’s still a huge market. It’s still Underpenetrated. Um, they’re making new advances all the time, eventually going, you know, moving toward a. Full closed loop system where it’s just happening automatically. So I, I would not write those players off at this point, but it’s an interesting tension that we’ll need to be watching for. So those are kind of some losers. Here’s an example of, uh, you know how Stream cannot allow the value. We had one of our stream experts, a plastic surgeon, talking about a potential winner from these drugs. And this plastic surgeon was saying skin tightening procedures are anticipated. At his practice to increase.
[00:28:28] And so, you know, makers of these skin tightening, minimally invasive technologies are in mode. Katera, Bausch Health and uh, it wasn’t something I had thought of before, but in reading that interview, I think it would be really interesting as people lose weight, up their skin, and generally just feeling better about themselves.
[00:28:48] I think even beyond specifically skin tightening procedures, I think we’re gonna see lots of people. Taking care of themselves, feeling better, investing in themselves as as they lose weight and improve their health.
[00:29:02] Nick Mazing: Sarah, thank you for joining us
[00:29:06] Sara Stahl: Thank you, Nick. It’s been a pleasure.
[00:29:09] Nick Mazing: today. We spoke with Sarah Stahl, who leads the healthcare coverage at AlphaSense expert Insight Solutions. We covered the new class of diet drugs, which is probably the the major topic in pharmaceuticals this year. This was another episode of Signals by AlphaSense. My name is Nick Mazing. You can find us on all the major platforms.
[00:29:29] Thank you for listening or watching.
