(Bloomberg) -- Hims & Hers Health Inc. shares dropped the most in their five-year history after Amazon.com Inc. said it would start marketing drugs to fight hair loss, an important component of the telehealth company’s business.
Hims fell as much as 18% Thursday, the most intraday since the shares began trading in September 2019. They had tripled this year through Wednesday’s close as its sales of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs skyrocketed.
Amazon has increasingly encroached on various sectors of the consumer health industry while occasionally threatening to widen its sales of prescription drugs. Earlier this year, the on-line retailer expanded same-day delivery for prescription medication to New York and the greater Los Angeles area, allowing customers to receive drugs within hours for conditions such as diabetes and the flu.
The news is “a reminder that while the Hims story has been almost entirely driven by GLP-1s recently, the majority of the base business remains hair loss and erectile dysfunction,” Michael Cherny, an analyst at Leerink Partners, said in a note. Amazon’s program “appears to offer a similar idea of convenience at what appears to be a lower price point across the board.”
Amazon’s pay-per-visit telehealth service, via One Medical, offers a clinical visit, treatment plan and free medication delivery for a range of common health, beauty and lifestyle concerns. Its offerings include treatments for men’s hair loss, skin care, eyelash growth and erectile dysfunction, according to its website. Its hair-loss treatment can start low as $16 a month.
Amazon shares fell 0.9% Thursday at 11:27 a.m.
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