Isabelle Kenyon, founder and CEO at weight loss telehealth company Calibrate, is stepping down as CEO, she said Tuesday in a post on the user-generated publishing website Medium.
Kenyon said she will continue to work with Calibrate, efforts that will include "evangelizing our mission, vision, and values" and helping increase access to the company's weight loss programs. Day-to-day operations will be overseen by Ed Cudahy, Calibrate’s president and chief operating officer and Scott Honken, the company’s chief commercial officer, she said.
Related: Providers, insurers and pharma play blame game on Wegovy shortage
Calibrate chief financial officer Dave Fielding is also stepping down from his role, according to a report in Fortune. The company declined to comment.
On Oct. 20, Calibrate confirmed it was undergoing a legal restructuring of its business supported by a new financial commitment from Madryn Asset Management and other existing investors. In April, the company cut 18% of its employees.
Kenyon founded Calibrate in 2019 and received significant backing from well-known venture firms Founders Fund and Tiger Global, as well as start up creator Redesign Health. A spokesperson for Redesign Health said the company would have a role in providing day-to-day support in Calibrate's operational, financial and planning efforts.
Calibrate has become one of several companies prescribing injectable medications known as glucagon-like peptide agonists, or GLP-1s, that can help people lose weight. The rising consumer demand of these GLP-1 drugs, specifically Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drug Wegovy as well as its diabetes drug Ozempic and Eli Lilly's diabetes drugs Trulicity and Mounjaro, has led to companies such as Calibrate, Noom, WeightWatchers and Teladoc prescribing them within their virtual weight loss programs.
But shortages of these drugs along with cautious insurers not willing to cover them have hampered some of these companies' efforts in the space. The increased number of virtual weight loss companies also has some traditional clinicians worried about the types of care being offered to patients via these platforms.
