Everyone's talking about Medvi this week.
A two-person telehealth startup selling compounded GLP-1 weight loss drugs just hit $1.8 billion in projected revenue. Built with $20,000 and a stack of AI tools. The internet is losing its mind.
But here's what nobody's asking: where are those patients actually going?
We built an AI system that analyzed nearly 10,000 aesthetic practices across the United States. Not survey data. Not self-reported. We looked at real service menus, real provider rosters, real device inventories — structured and queryable at a level that didn't exist before.
What we found tells a story that should matter to every medical device manufacturer in aesthetics.
More Than a Third of Aesthetic Practices Now Offer Weight Loss
Across our dataset, over 36% of practices have added weight loss programs to their service offering. Over a thousand are actively pushing semaglutide. Tirzepatide is in more than 500 locations and climbing.
This isn't a trend on the margins. It's a structural shift in what an aesthetic practice is.
Medspas Moved First
Here's where it gets interesting.
Half of all medspas in our dataset now offer GLP-1 weight loss services. Compare that to dermatology practices, where only about 6% have made the move.
The medspas figured it out before anyone else. While dermatologists and plastic surgeons debated whether weight loss belonged in their practice, medspas quietly became the default weight loss clinic in America.
They already had the patient relationship. They already had cash-pay infrastructure. Adding semaglutide was a natural extension — not a pivot, but an expansion of the same consumer-health thesis that built the medspa model in the first place.
The PE Paradox
You'd expect private equity-backed practices to move fastest — they have capital, they have operational playbooks, they have pressure to grow top-line revenue.
But our data shows the opposite.
PE-backed practices are actually less likely to offer GLP-1 services than independents. About 21% of PE-backed practices have added weight loss, versus 37% of independents.
Why? Likely a combination of compliance caution, slower decision-making through corporate structures, and a focus on proven procedure volume over new service lines. The independents don't need a committee to say yes.
What This Means for Device Manufacturers
If you sell devices into aesthetic practices, this data should change how you think about your market.
Your customer is changing what they do. A practice that adds weight loss is a practice that's shifting chair time, shifting patient conversations, and shifting purchasing priorities. That doesn't mean they'll buy fewer devices — but it means the competitive landscape inside each practice is more complex than it was two years ago.
The medspa segment is pulling away. They're faster to adopt, faster to pivot, and increasingly the dominant practice type in aesthetics. Any go-to-market strategy that treats medspas as a secondary channel is leaving money on the table.
Independent practices are the innovation edge. The small operators — the ones without PE overlords or corporate approval chains — are the ones moving first. If you want to understand where the market is heading in 18 months, watch what the independents are doing today.
The Dataset That Didn't Exist
There's no registry for what devices sit in a clinic. No database that tells you which practices carry Restylane versus Juvederm. No list that flags when a medspa quietly adds weight loss to their service menu. That information lived in the field — scattered across thousands of reps and hundreds of trade show conversations.
We built it.
Nearly 10,000 practices. Every device, every injectable brand, every provider. Device stacking patterns, competitive brand loyalty, PE ownership, digital presence, booking infrastructure, and now — who's made the GLP-1 move and who hasn't.
The model is the commodity. The data is the moat.
Fathom AI Technologies builds sales intelligence for medical device manufacturers. Our AI analyzes real practice data to give sales teams the kind of intelligence that used to take months to assemble. Request a demo to see what we can show you about your market.