Ro CEO on the next phase of the Ozempic boom
Since first appearing on the Masters of Scale podcast at the height of the Ozempic-Wegovy-Zepbound boom, Zach Reitano, CEO of Ro, has helped scale his company into a leading provider of branded GLP-1s—grabbing headlines with a 2026 Super Bowl ad featuring tennis champion Serena Williams and landing a major partnership with Novo Nordisk for the pill version of Wegovy. Now Reitano has new challenges to address: the long-term health unknowns of the medications, the cultural backlash to “Ozempic face,” and what this wave of disruption could mean not just for pharma but for the future of healthcare.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
You and I talked in what was the early phase of GLP-1 mania as weight-loss drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound were becoming household names. Since then, you have been in the heart of the action. I saw you had a Super Bowl ad this year featuring Serena Williams. I see your subway ads here in New York City with Serena and Charles Barkley all the time.
Yeah, love that. I love them.
I assume that having Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian—Serena’s husband—as an investor and on your board, that sort of helped make that possible, helped connect you to Serena?
Definitely helped with the initial introduction, but I think we would give her all the credit in the world for telling the story and making it happen.
A Super Bowl ad is expensive. What made you decide to do that? Because early on, it almost seemed like advertising wasn’t even a good idea with GLP-1s because there was enough supply.
It’s a lot of money, but I actually don’t think it’s expensive when you think about it. So the key distinction there, it is the only time in the entire year when a hundred-million-plus people gather, and ads are part of the product. So all other times, they’re an interruption in your life. You’re trying to get past them. I mean, I genuinely enjoy ads and the storytelling behind them. My wife makes fun of me for it. But for the most time, when you’re watching a TV show or a football game, it’s the time where you pick up your phone or you go to the restroom.
But during the Super Bowl, it’s actually the time where many people, not everyone, but many people pay the most attention. So it provides a very, very unique opportunity. For us, we announced our partnership with Serena in August, really trying to emphasize the concept that GLP-1s are not a shortcut.
Weight management and weight loss and that journey, people who struggle with it, it’s often perceived as a lack of self-discipline or willpower, and that using a medication for it could be perceived as a shortcut. Well, I think it’s fairly obvious that there’s no one probably on the planet with more self-discipline and willpower than Serena Williams. That was the first myth we wanted to bust. We felt like she was the perfect person who uses every tool to optimize performance and optimize her health, but would never take a shortcut.
She also talked about her improvement in blood sugar levels. She also talked about her reduction of heart disease, reduction of cholesterol by 30%, and her improvement in knee pain. But that was not the story that got picked up. So with the Super Bowl campaign, the intent was to try and break this second myth that GLP-1s are only for weight loss. The last time we spoke, I believe that GLP-1s were only approved for diabetes and newly obesity.
That’s right.
And the cash-pay prices were about $1,300. Fast-forward to today, they’re approved for diabetes, obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease, sleep apnea, being studied for neurodegenerative diseases, substance use disorders, pain management. So we felt, again, a very, very powerful story to tell. And it was not about needing more demand. I think it was about continuing to reach and give other people permission to seek out the best tools for their health.
We talked about some of the backlash that was going on about GLP-1 ads when some folks were saying, “Oh, you’re kind of labeling folks who are carrying more weight as needing to change their bodies.” Did that give you any pause about the Super Bowl ad or any of the rest of this? Or has the cultural conversation moved away from that?
I think there has been, fortunately, a reduction in the stigma, but it still very much exists, and it exists in all aspects of life. It exists when someone walks in the doctor’s office, it exists in social media, it exists with friends and family. It’s so wrapped up in so many different components of people’s lives. What is interesting is what was seen as shocking maybe three and a half, four years ago, our ad that we originally talked about was literally a subway campaign where it showed the medication, it showed the pen, and then it showed someone injecting the pen, and then it said “A weekly shot to lose weight,” and had the safety information.
Yeah, it was a very calm, measured ad compared to the reaction, which was super emotional.
It just said what the thing did, and it showed people using it as their doctor would direct them to. So I think that—a weekly shot to lose weight—probably is not surprising to people today. So we would say, “Hey, if we ran that same campaign, would people have that same reaction?” I think no. The fact that they wouldn’t have that same reaction is to me a sign that there has been some level of improvement. I think we’ll look back five years from now that Serena sharing her story is sort of this watershed moment.
When Hims & Hers announced a $49-a-month version of the Wegovy pill earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration stepped in to shut it down. What’s the competitive landscape there? Do you look at Hims & Hers as sort of a brother in arms in building this space? Or is it a nemesis that makes things more difficult for you?
It’s very similar to, I would say, like driving a car: You have a destination in mind, that destination is not identical to everyone else. But 5% of the time when you’re driving the car, you’re looking left, you’re looking right, you’re looking behind you, you’re aware of your surroundings. I’d say we look at competition very similarly.
Ro is the leading provider of branded GLP-1s in the country. Absolute No. 1, far and away. The reason that is the case is because we, I think, relative to all competitors—not naming one specifically, but all competitors—really work backwards from prioritizing what is absolutely best for patients. We offer cash-pay and insurance options. We have the strongest formulary. And then we have the highest-quality care, which we’ve published our data showing that patients on Ro lose the same amount of weight as they do in clinical trials, which is very rare, [to] see real-world evidence match clinical trials. So we’re less obsessed with what competitors are doing and far more obsessed with what our patients need and want.
To go with your car driving analogy, if there’s a car near you that gets pulled over by the cops or is blocking traffic in some way, that’s not necessarily something you’re focusing on or worrying about happening. You’re just going to find your own route.
I don’t think it’s great if a car drives off the road, crashes into a tree, and then that tree falls on the road, because I think that has the potential to be a net negative for patients, for all builders who are trying to better serve patients. So I think the industry was very appreciative of how fast the market responded in that way.