Hims & Hers made its name by making health care feel a lot less like a trip to the doctor. The company's CEO says the government missed the point of what that means.
In July, the Federal Trade Commission, Los Angeles County, and Utah sued Hims & Hers.
The complaint says medical details about users were sent to advertising platforms such as Meta and Snap, patients were billed for prescriptions before they had talked with a health care provider, and cancellations were made surprisingly difficult.
Dudum told CNBC the lawsuit misunderstands how his company works. "I think ultimately they wanted more of a headline than a real agreement here," he said.
He called the company "active disruptors" and said it is willing to take that role head-on when access to care is at stake.
The company's argument is that its entire business model is built to expand access to care.
Whether those complaints are growing pains or red flags is the question at the center of the case.
The lawsuit is far from the only challenge the company faces. Hims & Hers also sits in the middle of a price war over GLP-1 drugs, the class of medicines used for diabetes and weight loss.
When the brand-name drugs were in shortage, Hims & Hers legally sold cheaper custom-mixed copies, known as compounded versions, to people who could not get the originals.
Novo Nordisk, which makes one of the branded versions, sued Hims & Hers for patent infringement after shortages ended. Then, in March, Novo dropped the case, and Hims & Hers agreed to offer Novo's branded drugs on its platform.
Around the same time, Novo and rival Eli Lilly were cutting out-of-pocket prices. In other words, what patients pay directly was already coming down.
Dudum predicted monthly GLP-1 costs will fall to $40-$50 for cash-paying patients.
That would be a real drop from the $150-$200 a month people pay now, depending on the form of medication.
"When we were compounding the GLP-1s, there was no affordable access to these therapeutics," he said.
That experience, he argued, showed drugmakers these medicines could be demanded affordable.
Dudum is also looking beyond the lawsuit and the price fight. His next edge is artificial intelligence.
Hims & Hers is investing in becoming what he calls "AI native." That means building its own AI systems instead of using outside AI agents.
He thinks basic AI models are not worth much without the right data.
"The core foundational models, independent of a closed loop data set, are not that valuable. That's my honest opinion," Dudum said.
What he calls the closed loop is a new private health dataset that stays inside the company.
"The closed loop data that you have within a healthcare system like Hims & Hers, that is the asset," he said.
For people who buy healthcare, the over-arching story is the monthly cost of GLP-1 drugs.
The lawsuit may take years, but that cost is already moving. He's betting it keeps falling.
If he is correct, a medicine that once carved a large hole in someone's budget might become something most households can afford.
For investors, it means watching a company bet on more affordable drugs and better data at the same time. Either way, your healthcare budget is part of the story.