Pharmadoctor exclusively told C+D last week (March 17) that the number of consultations delivered under its weight management service in the last 12 months – March 2024 to February 2025 – is “twenty times more than the preceding 12-month period”.
Although the exact figures are commercially confidential, this represents a 1,900% increase in consultations.
Pharmadoctor chief executive Graham Thoms revealed that the number of consultations for the service “have been growing exponentially” since the weight loss drug Mounjaro became part of the service last February.
Read more: New weight loss regs: Almost 50 concerns already raised with GPhC
Pharmadoctor first launched its weight management service in 2022 and the platform introduced weight loss jab Wegovy in September 2023, when the drug first became available in the UK.
At the time, the platform claimed that its “partner pharmacies” were the “first private UK service providers” to offer Wegovy to patients in an in-person clinical setting.
“Record” numbers
An email sent to Pharmadoctor partner pharmacies this month, seen by C+D, said that this February was a “record month in consultation numbers” for the service, “with a further 25% increase in patient demand versus January”.
“The upward trajectory in consultation numbers has been a constant feature over the last year, with an unbelievable average increase of 33% month-on-month in that period,” it said.
“If that trend continues for another 12 months, the Pharmadoctor weight management service will generate over £164 million in turnover for [its] partner pharmacies,” the platform added.
Read more: Novo Nordisk launches ‘lower cost’ Wegovy online pharmacy
Thoms told C+D that “as per all private pharmacy services”, pharmacies “should be making a 40-50% gross profit margin on the cost of the service they charge patients”.
It comes after manufacturer Novo Nordisk this month announced that it has launched a “direct-to-patient” pharmacy in the US, offering “all dose strengths of Wegovy at a reduced cost”.
Read more: ‘I’ve still got a fat man’s brain’: PharmaDoctor’s CEO speaks about his Mounjaro journey
Thoms told C+D in December that in the previous six months, the popularity of Mounjaro had far surpassed Wegovy.
Almost 80% of products dispensed via its service were Mounjaro, he said at the time, adding that among the 996 pharmacies in the Pharmadoctor network offering weight loss jabs, less than 21% of products dispensed were Wegovy.
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Meanwhile, C+D revealed earlier this month that in the first month of the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) updated online pharmacy regulations, the regulator has already received almost 50 concerns relating to weight management.
Of those, three have been “referred for an investigation into the fitness to practise of the pharmacy professional”, the regulator said.
