Meet ReShape Lifesciences: Fly exclusive interview with CEO Paul Hickey

In an exclusive interview with The Fly, ReShape Lifesciences (RSLS) CEO Paul Hickey talked about the company, its flagship product, upcoming milestones, the weight loss industry and much more.

WEIGHT LOSS: ReShape Lifesciences is a weight loss and metabolic health-solutions company, offering an integrated portfolio of products and services that manage and treat obesity and metabolic disease. “Its mission really is to focus on helping those who are fighting obesity and related diseases and improve the quality of life. We were founded some time ago and the product portfolio has evolved over the years. But its flagship product is the Lap-Band, which is a story with 20 years of history,” the company’s CEO Paul Hickey told The Fly in an exclusive interview.

LAP-BAND SYSTEM: ReShape’s FDA-approved Lap-Band System provides minimally invasive, long-term treatment of obesity and is an alternative to more invasive surgical stapling procedures such as the gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy. Recently, the company announced that the FDA had granted approval of a PMA supplement for its next generation, enhanced Lap-Band 2.0 FLEX. “This is huge. It’s the highest rigorous scrutiny from FDA you can get in terms of product improvement that’s included in our Lap-Band 2.0. Besides the approval, which is a pretty big accomplish to get through the FDA, we also had a lot of positive feedback from physicians, not only on our scientific advisory board but also physicians who had a history with the Lap-Band in the past,” the executive added.

STRATEGIC PARTNERS, MERGER: Just before Christmas, ReShape said it has engaged Maxim Group to act as the company’s exclusive financial advisor to identify potential strategic merger and acquisition partnership alternatives. “One of the strategies I put together as CEO is to ensure growth by commercializing new products. You can do that in several ways. But the two primary ones are, first, organically – developing product with internal resources, and second, with partnerships, acquisitions, merger, and anything in between. We brought Maxim to look for opportunities for us, so we can talk to different companies about potentially partnering with us or potential interest in being acquired by us or acquiring us. I would say that withing the next six months I would hope to have traction with said discussions with at least one company,” Hickey added.

GLP-1 DRUGS: Two GLP-1 receptor agonists previously designated to treat type 2 diabetes have been FDA-approved in formulations specifically designed for weight loss in people without the disease. The rise in popularity of these drugs made one of them a top-five best-seller drug in 2023. Discussing the space and the potential repercussions of these GLP-1 drugs, ReShape’s CEO noted that the company’s “industry as well as many others have been impacted. You can look at our numbers and see we’re down financially in our revenue year-over-year. With that said, when you think of our industry and our portfolio, you see it is really to address the surgical bariatric market. Only 1% of the eligible population for bariatric surgery is having surgery. There’s 99% of the population that’s sitting out there that could use a surgical consult and potentially have bariatric surgery. They’re just not interested. Frankly, I truly believe obesity is one of those diseases that are normalized and where people don’t seek medical attention. I think one of the positive impacts of the GLP-1s is that we’re starting to see a normalization of treatment.”

“We believe this will bring a lot more people from the sidelines and we will have a much larger market. Alongside that, we also believe there will be a lot more people seeking surgery because of all the attention this is getting with big pharma and all the advertising being done,” ReShape’s CEO told The Fly. “There’s another thing people believe that is a misconception, that with obesity we have just one pill, one injection, one surgery as the cure. When you talk to leading experts in the field, they will tell you that it is a lifelong disease. It’s a very adaptable and kind of resilient disease. So, they will do more than just take a shot or pill or even have surgery. What we’re seeing is combination therapy.”

2024 OUTLOOK: Looking to the new year, the CEO says the company is “excited about 2024. On the heels of the FDA news and giving us approval for our Lap-Band 2.0, we’re working on preparation to commercialize the 2.0 Flex, which we will see in the first quarter. The progression of that launch and commercialization will continue to ramp up through 2024.”

“The other thing we’re doing to stimulate and provide some oxygen to our Lap-Band franchise relates to our marketing efforts. We’ve really revamped our marketing to be very, very patient friendly. Regarding the nurturing of leads in terms of getting individuals who are starting to explore what’s the next step in their weight loss journey, we’ve done a very good job finding a way to surround our physicians with marketing activities to allow people to connect and have the appropriate discussions.”

“Meet the Company” is The Fly’s recurring series of exclusive short interviews with Executive Officers to offer a deeper look inside the company.