Categories
The most common mistake in this market is running one RFP across five categories of vendor and comparing the responses on price. These are different products. Start here.
Full-service clinical
Prescribes, manages, and monitors end to end
These vendors employ or contract prescribers and own the entire care pathway: intake, labs, prescribing, titration, and maintenance. You are buying a virtual obesity-medicine clinic. Expect the highest per-member cost and the most direct influence on net pharmacy spend.
- Average score
- 7.6
- PMPM span
- $38–$110
Coaching companion
Wraps behavior change around someone else's prescription
Coaching companions do not prescribe. They surround a GLP-1 prescription written elsewhere with nutrition, strength, and adherence support. Cheapest tier, and the natural choice when your PBM already controls the drug and you want to protect lean mass and durability.
- Average score
- 8.4
- PMPM span
- $32–$58
Metabolic specialist
Diabetes-first, medication-sparing clinical models
Built around type 2 diabetes and metabolic reversal rather than weight alone. Often position GLP-1s as one tool among several, with explicit deprescribing goals. Strong fit when your population skews diabetic and your CFO wants drug spend to fall, not rise.
- Average score
- 7.9
- PMPM span
- $34–$120
Navigation & orchestration
Routes members to the right vendor and enforces policy
Rather than delivering care, these platforms sit above your point solutions, triage members, and enforce eligibility rules across them. Valuable at scale and in multi-vendor environments; redundant if you have a single clinical partner.
- Average score
- 7.3
- PMPM span
- $12–$44
Consumer-brand clinical
Direct-to-consumer names with an employer contract
Consumer weight-management brands that added prescribing and now sell to employers. Best-in-class member acquisition and app polish; the diligence question is always whether clinical governance and reporting match the marketing.
- Average score
- 6.8
- PMPM span
- $28–$68