High-cost weight loss drugs boost nutrition counseling with employers [Video]

A few years ago, when Virta Health founder and CEO Sami Inkinen approached employers about leveraging the company’s nutrition-oriented digital diabetes program for obesity-related weight loss, most companies weren’t ready to commit. 

Now, more employers are all in on nutritional counseling and coaching as they grapple with rising costs for diabetes and weight loss drugs such as Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound. 

“Our goal is not to drive the maximum number of GLP-1 prescriptions, but we are the telemedicine company of choice for many employers to responsibly use these drugs, and then also get members off of these drugs and sustain the weight loss nutritionally,” said Inkinen.

The company published a peer-reviewed studya year ago which found that patients on Virta’s nutrition-counseling programs maintained weight loss one year after they stopped using GLP-1s. But Inkinen says less than 10% of the company’s weight loss enrollees …