Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum defended the telehealth company amid a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit over its data sharing practices.
In a wide-ranging exclusive interview aired Tuesday, Dudum contended the allegations stemmed from a misunderstanding of how the company is altering healthcare.
"I can't say much other than the fact that, you know when you're changing the fundamental understanding of how a traditional system like healthcare works, and you're rebuilding it in the digital ecosystem," he told Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "I think it takes time for people to understand how to do that the right way, and we've worked for many years with the FTC to walk them through that. And I think ultimately they wanted more of a headline than than a real agreement here."
In July, the FTC, Los Angeles County and Utah filed a lawsuit against Hims & Hers. It accused the company of sharing user health information with advertisers like Meta and Snap, charging for prescriptions before customers have spoken with a healthcare provider and making it hard to cancel subscriptions.
Dudum defended the telehealth provider's business model, saying it is built around increasing access to care.
"We are active disruptors. We take that head on, and we're willing to do it. But it is always when we believe that it's in the best interest of people and their access," said Dudum.
The Hims & Hers CEO also weighed in on the company's transition from compounded to branded GLP-1 drugs. When popular obesity and weight loss drugs were in shortage in recent years, the company could legally sell copycat versions at a discount.
After supply recovered, Novo Nordisk sued Hims & Hers for patent infringement. In March, the Danish drugmaker dropped its suit and the telehealth company agreed to sell Novo's branded drugs on its platform.
That decision came at a time when Novo and its main rival Eli Lilly were cutting the prices of their GLP-1 drugs for patients paying out of pocket.
"Ultimately, we will always apply pressure to the system if we believe it's best for the consumer. And when we were compounding the GLP-1s, there was no affordable access to these therapeutics," said Dudum. "Now, what that did in the ecosystem is it showed consumers and the drug companies these medications can be brought to consumers at a price that everyone can afford."
Dudum said he ultimately sees prices for cash-paying patients dropping to $40 to $50 per month, from roughly $150 to $200 now, depending on the form of the medication.
Dudum also said he believes artificial intelligence will dramatically transform healthcare, and the company is increasing its investments to ultimately go "AI native." Dudum said Hims & Hers is moving away from third-party AI agents to build everything in house.
"The core foundational models, independent of a closed loop data set, are not that valuable. That's my honest opinion," said Dudum. "The closed loop data that you have within a healthcare system like Hims & Hers, that is the asset."
