Henry Meds Semaglutide Review

Weight loss is a struggle for most people. According to the National Institutes of Health, more than 30% of adults in the U.S. have overweight, and an even higher number — 42.4% — have obesity.1 And those numbers are pre-pandemic.

Another recent study points out that genetics can influence as much as 50% of a person’s propensity to gain weight and difficulty losing it, with the other 50% coming from environmental factors like diet and exercise.2 So, it makes sense that the medical establishment is finally embracing weight loss drugs as more than just a cosmetic concern.

One of those drugs is semaglutide — better known by the brand names Ozempic or Wegovy — and Henry Meds is one of a slew of online providers that have recently cropped up to offer prescriptions to the public. We’ve scoured the landscape of these drug offerings and evaluated Henry in detail, including receiving prescriptions ourselves, to let you discover whether Henry is right for your weight loss goals.

Henry Meds offers semaglutide as an injection, oral tablet, and sublingual drops for very competitive prices. The company also offers other weight loss medications, including generics for Mounjaro and Saxenda. Our testing experience was positive in every respect but for the design of the patient portal, which would be more helpful if it was less sparse. We can highly recommend Henry for people interested in semaglutide, especially if they don’t want to deal with needles.

At Innerbody, we painstakingly research every product and service we review, including medication providers like Henry Meds. And we go through the entire customer process whenever possible, from touring a site and talking to customer service to making doctors appointments and receiving medications.

In Henry's case, our testing team has spent nearly 100 hours looking into Henry's offerings and comparing them with the broader telehealth marketplace. We've also made appointments with their medical professionals, received medicine, and tried it for ourselves. On top of this hands-on research, our team digested more than 85 scholarly articles pertaining to weight loss and the drugs Henry offers. Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this guide was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

To evaluate Henry Meds semaglutide, we studied the landscape of companies offering this and similar medications, comparing their available treatments and costs to what Henry offers. We also looked at Henry’s semaglutide through the lens of scientific research, assessing its potential efficacy and safety.

Finally, we used our extensive hands-on testing experience to evaluate Henry’s customer service infrastructure and let you know what it’s like to be a patient there.

Let’s take a quick look at how Henry fared in each of the four criteria we’ve decided are most important to potential patients.

Effectiveness

Semaglutide belongs to a class of drugs called glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs). These are the weight loss drugs that have been taking the country by storm in recent years, and they’re better known by their popular brand names like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. GLP-1 RAs are built on slightly different active ingredients, depending on which brand you get, and semaglutide is the active ingredient for Ozempic and Wegovy.

Popular sentiment and anecdotal evidence abound that these drugs are effective, but clinical research reveals just how effective they are. One study with more than 300 participants saw a 15.8% decrease in body weight for semaglutide after 68 weeks.3 Another study saw a 12.4% decrease after 72 weeks.4 Averaging those two outcomes, someone weighing 200 pounds could reasonably expect to lose around 14% of their body weight after about 16 months. That equates to 28 lb, bringing their final weight down to 172 lb.

Outcomes will vary based on everything from diet and exercise to genetics, and the length of time you stay on the drug can impact your results, as well. But it’s clear that the scientific evidence available, of which there is plenty, points toward semaglutide being effective for weight loss.

So, why doesn’t Henry Meds semaglutide score a 10 out of 10? Well, part of the problem is the lack of evidence surrounding the doses Henry uses in its oral semaglutide preparations. The injectable version aligns exactly with most clinical studies and the regimen employed by Ozempic and Wegovy. But the guidelines for oral preparations are less clear.

A branded form of oral semaglutide tablets sells under the brand name Rybelsus and provides a 3mg daily tablet. And research into the oral version often involves 3mg, 7mg, and 14mg doses.5 Henry’s sublingual drops and dissolving tablets only provide 1mg per day. However, because they initially absorb through oral membranes, bypassing the stomach to go straight to the bloodstream, they shouldn’t need as high of a dose.6 Research indicates a certain amount of difficulty absorbing peptides through regular digestion, so sublingual absorption could prove superior.7

The only problem is that sublingual delivery mechanisms for semaglutide haven't been tested to establish an effective dose outside of the compounding pharmacy industry’s internal publications, which are more marketing materials than clinical research.

Our testers experienced what greatly resembled efficacy from 1mg of the sublingual drops, but there’s nothing to indicate this will be a typical experience.

Safety

As with semaglutide’s efficacy, the drug's safety profile is similar to any purveyor like Henry. But there are some noteworthy differences between Henry’s offering and its direct competitors, as well as one big difference between generic semaglutide and brand-name equivalents.

While semaglutide should be safe for most people, it often causes gastrointestinal side effects early in treatment, including:8

• Bloating
• Abdominal pain
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Belching
• Flatulence

While these aren’t the most pleasant or flattering side effects, they often fade with use as your body adjusts to the effects of the medication. However, there are some more serious potential risks associated with GLP-1 RAs, including semaglutide.

Among those dangers is the increased risk of thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, and gallbladder disease.9 10 11

While those potential side effects are present in both branded and generic semaglutide products, the brand-name versions come in autoinjectors, a lot like an EpiPen. These allow you to administer your weekly injections without interacting with a traditional syringe. They also take the guesswork out of your dosing.

Henry and other companies offering generic, injectable semaglutide will provide you with a vial of medication and a big bag full of disposable syringes. You’ll have to draw your dose out of the vial and inject yourself weekly. Done properly, this routine poses little risk, but everything from improper techniques to poorly washed hands increases the risk of injury or infection.

Cost

Henry was one of the first to offer oral forms of semaglutide, and several others have followed suit with their own sublingual drops. But Henry is the only one of the following to offer both drops and dissolving tablets. Strut offers lozenges, but the cost is significant.

As you can see, Henry’s prices are consistently among the lowest out there. And you can usually get $50 off of your first month with regular promotions that Henry runs.

However, it’s worth noting that the cost of oral medications goes up by $100/month if you need a higher dose. And, as we discussed in the efficacy section above, 1mg of a sublingual dose is unproven in the scientific literature. None of Henry’s competitors start out at a higher dose, but Hims, Ivy RX, Mochi, and Eden have confirmed to us that their prices do not increase if your dose does.

Customer care and convenience

Henry has a noteworthy advantage over many of its competitors in offering different oral formulations of its semaglutide (and tirzepatide). Some providers, like Hims and Ro, only offer semaglutide injections. Others, like Eden or Ivy RX, offer injections and oral drops. Henry provides semaglutide as an injection, oral drops, or dissolvable tablets. This diversity gives you more options to find a semaglutide delivery mechanism that fits your needs and lifestyle.

For the most part, our testing experience with Henry Meds was positive and straightforward. The website is easy to navigate, and the consultation process was relatively smooth. We were surprised to see a one-week wait to talk to a Henry medical professional. In testing other telehealth services, we’ve been able to get next-day appointments in some cases, so a week seemed like a long wait (even though it’s a lot faster than getting an in-person appointment can be).

Once we created accounts with Henry, we were also a little disappointed by the design of its patient portal. Competitors like Hims and Ro have highly polished portals that make it easy to do everything from messaging your doctor to ordering other products.

You also may be disappointed if you’re a potential patient and you have a technical question to ask. Most nuanced questions about things like medication ingredients and dosing are left up to the clinicians you speak to during your intake appointment. But you have to put up the cost of your first month of treatment to make that appointment. You’ll be refunded if you don’t go through with or don't qualify for treatment, but it’s frustrating that you have to put money on the line to have certain product questions answered.

Henry Meds is a telehealth provider offering treatments for weight loss, sleep maintenance, and testosterone support. It allows you to browse a small catalog of medications and set up a telehealth appointment with an affiliated medical professional (usually a nurse practitioner) who can prescribe you the appropriate medication and dose for your needs.

Henry works with compounding pharmacies to deliver drugs to your door, so you don’t have to go to a local pharmacy to pick anything up. The company also offers ongoing support and communication with medical professionals as you begin and go through your treatment.

Henry Meds company reputation

While Henry doesn’t have a page on the Better Business Bureau website, its parent company, Adonis Health, does. Unfortunately, Adonis does not have a very good rating there, with an F from the BBB and no customer ratings. There are 11 customer complaints, mostly having to do with confusion around billing and guarantee timing, and sometimes to do with medication efficacy.

The picture on Trustpilot is much more flattering, with an impressive 4.7 out of 5 stars from over 4,000 customer reviews. Among those reviews, negative comments seem to focus on occasional fulfillment issues from Henry’s partner pharmacies, while positive reviews focus on the smoothness of the overall process and success in treatment.

Semaglutide is the active ingredient in the brand-name medications Ozempic and Wegovy. It’s a glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA). Other similar weight loss drugs like Mounjaro or Saxenda are also GLP-1 RAs, but they have different active ingredients.

All GLP-1 RAs have more than one way of helping you lose weight. The first and possibly most important of these is the medications’ ability to help regulate blood sugar.12 In a nutshell, when there’s an overabundance of glucose in your blood, your body will build fat to store its energy. GLP-1 RAs stimulate the pancreas to create more insulin, a hormone that essentially gobbles up the glucose in your blood.12

That extra insulin leads to a reduction and balancing of blood sugar, which allows your body to more effectively regulate its fat stores without creating new, excessive adipose tissue. And when your blood sugar gets low enough, your body ratchets up a process called glycogenesis, which breaks down tissue, including fat, to maintain blood sugar.

GLP-1 RAs will also slow down your digestion, so you’ll feel fuller from eating less food and stay fuller for longer.13 They will also influence the hormonal balance that informs satiety, tricking your brain into believing you’re fuller than you are.14

The mechanisms of action all combine so that you take in fewer calories and make more out of them energetically while making less out of them as fat. With time, this allows your system to burn excess fat and can even improve the health and activity of the pancreatic cells responsible for your insulin response.

Non-semaglutide GLP-1 medications from Henry Meds

Henry offers two other generic GLP-1 RAs in addition to semaglutide:

• Tirzepatide: the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound
• Liraglutide: the active ingredient in Saxenda and Victoza

Of the three drugs, tirzepatide has shown the highest weight loss rates in studies, with one study showing nearly 18% of body weight lost after 72 weeks. In that same study, semaglutide provided 12.4% weight loss (still an admirable number).4 And liraglutide tends to perform a little worse than semaglutide.3

Unfortunately, Henry’s tirzepatide is more expensive than its semaglutide or liraglutide, which is strange when you consider that Moujaro’s retail price is lower than Wegovy’s, though that may have more to do with competing pharmaceutical companies’ profit margins than anything else.

Semaglutide from Henry is as safe as any other legitimate semaglutide product you could get in a generic or brand-name form. Henry uses compounding pharmacies subject to FDA regulations to make these drugs, though it's worth noting that the actual substances that leave a compounding pharmacy are not FDA-approved, as they contain certain nuances of their formulations (typically inactive ingredients) that differentiate them from approved, brand-name drugs.

But that doesn’t mean semaglutide is perfectly safe. In fact, GLP-1 RAs of all stripes have some common side effects worth mentioning, as well as some increased risk factors for other diseases.

Common side effects of semaglutide

The most common side effects associated with semaglutide are about the same as you’ll see from other GLP-1 RAs, though there is a difference in their prevalence from one drug to the next. The bulk of these side effects impact the GI system, where GLP-1 RAs work to slow down gastric emptying.

These side effects may be exacerbated by eating the way you did before starting treatment. Reducing size, weight, and caloric content of your meals can help offset some of these side effects.

Common semaglutide side effects can include:8

• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Abdominal pain

One reaction our testers experienced was tied to reports of nausea but was described as “revulsion” to foods in the middle of meals. Suddenly, a tester would find themselves repelled by the next bite of food and unable to look at or smell the meal in front of them. This can likely be attributed to the action GLP-1 RAs exert on the central nervous system and brain function.15 While effective at reducing caloric intake, we consider it a side effect, as our testing team generally regarded it as an unpleasant experience.

Semaglutide’s less common side effects

Most of semaglutide’s known but less common side effects arise from studies looking at long-term use, often in patients and study participants who’ve used the drug for at least a year.

For example, one extensive review of semaglutide’s safety discusses the incidence of pancreatitis in study participants, as well as the potential link between GLP-1 RAs and pancreatic cancer.16 It’s a sensible thing to study considering these drugs’ effect on the pancreas, and cases of pancreatitis were present in several studies, but researchers note that the incidence isn’t meaningfully higher than that of the general population outside the study group.

More research is definitely needed, especially given the mortality rate associated with pancreatic cancer.17 There doesn’t appear to be a direct link between pancreatic cancer and GLP-1 RA use at this time. However, if you or your family have a history of pancreas issues, it might be wise to avoid the drug class altogether.

Risks of gallbladder issues, particularly gallstones, appear to be relatively high, with one study suggesting a chance of up to 28%.18

Another danger involves the increased risk of thyroid cancer, which requires more study but is undeniably present. As a result, questions about thyroid health and sometimes thyroid testing can be prerequisites of GLP-1 RA prescriptions.9

If you’re at all familiar with generic medications, it may surprise you to see one available for Ozempic so soon after that brand-name drug came to market. While it’s true that drug patents can last for decades before expiring and allowing other companies to manufacture generic versions, there’s a loophole in the system to help ensure people who need certain drugs can get them reliably.

This loophole runs through compounding pharmacies, specialized pharmacies that can manufacture one-off and small-batch prescriptions for people with certain allergies to inactive ingredients in brand-name medications. They can also be useful if a certain medication is only available as an oral tablet for people with dysphagia or similar issues.

Companies like Henry are able to offer medications like semaglutide because there’s a shortage, and the FDA allows compounding pharmacies to make generic versions of patented drugs when they are in short supply.

These pharmacies are FDA-regulated, and the companies that work with Henry and the others mentioned in this review all create drugs that are as safe and effective as the branded equivalents. However, it’s important to note that these drugs themselves aren’t technically FDA-approved.

Also, be careful if you see compounded semaglutide offered from a company you find suspect. Some fly-by-night pharmacies have been caught compounding slightly different forms of semaglutide — semaglutide salts — which lack both the efficacy and research into safety you get with the real ingredient.19

Henry’s pricing for semaglutide is extremely competitive, especially for the injectable version. But Henry also offers semaglutide as a dissolvable tablet or sublingual drops. Pricing for these is a bit different, and it may be an area of Henry’s business that falls behind some others if you need a different dose than what’s standard.

Here’s a quick summary of Henry’s semaglutide offering:

Compared to Ro, where you’d pay a $145 membership fee on top of $299/month for injectable semaglutide, it's obvious that Henry is the superior choice. Other companies, like Eden or Ivy RX, charge about the same, but they don’t upcharge for increased doses. Henry charges an extra $100/month for increased doses. So, if you find you need a 2mg injection instead of a 1mg injection, you’d save more with a competitor.

That said, the 1mg dose of semaglutide is what has shown effectiveness in most studies, so it should suffice for most patients.

Henry Meds liraglutide and tirzepatide

In addition to semaglutide, Henry Meds offers tirzepatide (generic for Mounjaro and Zepbound) and liraglutide (generic for Saxenda and Victoza).

Prices for injectable liraglutide from Henry are the same as injectable semaglutide, and liraglutide is not available orally. Pricing for tirzepatide is a little higher, and tirzepatide is available as an injection or dissolving tablet.

As with semaglutide, Henry charges an additional $100 for increased doses. If the 3mg oral tirzepatide works for you, then Henry is likely your best bet. That’s true both for cost and if you’d prefer to avoid needles. Competitors that offer tirzepatide at this time only do so as an injection.

But Eden and Ivy RX both offer less expensive injectable tirzepatide (around $400/month each). If you need a higher dose than 7.5mg, Eden is the only one of those three companies that won’t increase its price above 7.5mg. Ivy RX and Henry both charge an extra $100 for higher tirzepatide doses.

Henry Meds billing cycle and money-back guarantee

No matter how long it takes you to get an appointment or receive medicine, Henry’s billing cycle and 30-day money-back guarantee start from the moment you pay during signup. So, if your appointment is four days out, and it takes you another three to receive your treatment, you’ll only have three weeks to try it out. You’ll also get billed three weeks later.

It’s important to understand this going into the process, so you don’t get surprised by your second bill. As for the money-back guarantee, 30 days seems to be about as generous as any of these companies get, and it’s not enough time to meaningfully test out semaglutide. Hopefully, Henry will diversify its guarantee in the future to account for the time it takes to see results with different medications.

While we don’t always have testers who are willing or even appropriate candidates to try certain prescription medications, we were able to try semaglutide from Henry, specifically its sublingual oral drops. Ultimately, our testing here is merely anecdotal, lacking any scientific controls or rigorous dietary requirements. The idea was to let you know what it feels like to try semaglutide in the real world.

We discovered a lot about the company and both the convenience and limitations of third-party compounding pharmacies to provide certain goods. For the most part, the process was totally painless, but there were some undeniable hiccups along the way. In the end, our testers found the medication noticeably effective after under a month, though less so on the scale and more so on eating habits.

Our intake appointments went smoothly, though one tester ran into some difficulty uploading an ID. The nurse practitioners we spoke with were very friendly and patient, answering all of our questions and letting us know how to connect with them later with any follow-up inquiries.

As instructed, testers titrated up from 0.5mg the first week to a maintenance dose of 1mg. The tangerine flavor was just fine; it lacked any of the acidity you’d expect from a citrus flavor and allowed some of the medication’s bitterness to sneak through, but it wasn’t unpleasant for a medication.

No one really felt any effects until around week three, when occasional nausea or revulsion to food during meals started up. Testers felt they could go for longer periods without eating, and no other side effects occurred.

Testers’ weight stayed about the same, with a slight loss toward the end of testing that wasn’t quite enough to be attributed to the semaglutide. Again, this was a very brief experience and is only meant to provide some information about what you might expect from the routine at the outset.

As we’ve alluded to throughout this review, there are numerous competing platforms offering access to semaglutide prescriptions and custom-compounded semaglutide shipped right to your door. Some of these companies also offer access to brand-name GLP-1 RAs, and a few will even help you navigate some potential insurance headaches.

Here’s a broad look at the GLP-1 RA landscape among the top online providers:

Among these competitors, Eden, Ivy RX, and Mochi are the only companies that truly compete with Henry on a price basis. And if you’re unsure whether or not your insurance will cover brand-name GLP-1 RAs, Eden or Ivy RX may be a better place to start. You can pursue either brand-name drugs there without paying any membership fees, so even if you discover your insurance doesn't cover GLP-1 RAs, you won't have lost any money.

If you find your insurance will cover most of the cost of certain brand-name GLP-1 RAs, you’d probably be better off going through your regular physician than using one of these telehealth services, as you may save more, depending on the specifics of your insurance plan and the prices these companies place on brand-name products.