Hims & Hers buys Zava to form European beachhead

US telehealth company Hims & Hers has reached a deal to buy its UK counterpart Zava in a sign of its ambition to build its European operations, including the supply of weight-loss medicines.

The cash-based acquisition – the financial terms of which are not being disclosed – will expand Hims & Hers' presence in the UK and give it a position in Germany, France, and Ireland for the first time. Zava has around 1.3 million active users in those four European markets and delivered 2.3 million online consultations last year.

Hims & Hers chief executive Andrew Dudum said that the deal is a "huge first step forward in making personalised care accessible and seamless to more people around the world" and would help it build its presence in Europe, under its own brand, by tapping into Zava's platform.

"Few companies have scaled healthcare access in Europe the way Zava has, and they're the only digital health company to have spent more than a decade in the region," he continued, adding: "Europe is establishing itself as forward-thinkers in how technology can transform healthcare."

In an interesting development, Hims & Hers has also indicated that it hopes to extend its efforts to build a business in obesity therapies in the US – now in a partnership with former rival Novo Nordisk – into European markets.

Zava is already making a range of weight-loss treatments available on an out-of-pocket basis to its customers, subject to a telephone consultation, including Novo Nordisk's Wegovy (semaglutide), Eli Lilly's Mounjaro (tirzepatide), and older therapies like Orexigen's Mysimba (naltrexone and bupropion) and orlistat.

Hims & Hers, meanwhile, has been one of the big players in the US market for compounded versions of semaglutide and tirzepatide, which under US law was possible while the two drugs were in limited supply.

Now, with both products off the FDA's shortages list, Hims & Hers is looking for ways to keep that business thriving, and recently took an important step in that direction when – along with other US telehealth firms LifeMD and Ro – it agreed to become a sales channel for direct-to-consumer (DTC) distribution of Wegovy.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Dudum said that Hims & Hers have been able to continue to sell some "personalised" compounded versions of obesity therapies in the US, such as different doses or combinations, and he believes similar routes to market exist in the UK and other European markets.