Medvi is an AI-powered telemedicine startup with two employees. The company did $401 million in business last year, made $65 million in profits, and is expected to have $1.8 billion in sales this year, according to a recent profile in the New York Times.
A major factor in Medvi’s growth is its use of affiliate marketers. Medvi founder Matthew Gallagher told Business Insider in an email that “probably 30%” of the company’s advertising is done through affiliates.
After investigating Meta’s ad library, we found that some of these affiliates were running ads featuring content that appeared to be AI-generated, such as people purporting to be doctors. The pages purported to belong to the doctors include posts that suggest they were previously run by other people or companies, and some of the photos include clear signs of AI use, such as garbled text.
As of Monday, at least six pages purporting to be doctors were promoting Medvi’s weight loss drug and products that claim to enhance male sexual performance. One of the profiles, “Dr. Matthew Anderson,” has an Angolan phone number and appears to previously belong to a gospel musician. Another, “Dr. Spencer Langford MD,” has older posts and contact information for a clothing store in the Republic of Congo.
One of Medvi’s marketers, “Wade Frazer MD,” removed the “MD” after Business Insider asked about it. The same profile photo was also used on three other pages promoting Medvi.
More than 5,000 active ad campaigns mentioning or linking to Medvi were published on Friday, according to Meta’s advertising library. By Monday, the number of ads had dropped to about 2,800 after Business Insider brought to Gallagher’s attention profiles with signs of AI use, including a Gemini watermark on the profile photo and unlikely situations like a real estate agent promoting weight loss pills.
“Like the FTC, we have a clear policy of disclosing or not using actor and AI depictions of doctors,” Gallagher told Business Insider on Friday, using his initials for the Federal Trade Commission. “If we discover affiliates engaging in this behavior, we will work to remove these ads.”
The pages referenced in this article did not contain any notable disclosures when reviewed by BI.
Medvi was one of six telemedicine companies named in an investigation request sent to the FTC in September by the Consumer Federation of America and others, said Nancy Glick, NCL’s director of food, nutrition and obesity.
In her view, Medvi’s use of terms such as “trusted by experts” and “physician-approved” on its website confuses consumers about the safety testing of the combination drugs it sells.
“Medvi’s actions violate the FTC Act,” Glick told Business Insider. With so many companies selling compounded drugs online, “it’s like playing a game of whack-a-mole,” she says.
The FTC said advertisers must have “reasonable programs” in place to supervise affiliates, and specifically flagged health-related marketing as an area that “may require further oversight” than lower-risk areas such as fashion.
Mr. Gallagher did not respond to questions about whether and how his company monitors its affiliates.
The FDA sent a letter in February warning that medvi.io’s representations were “false or misleading,” including comparisons to FDA-approved drugs such as Wegovy and images suggesting it was formulating drugs sold by Medvi itself.
Although the FDA’s letter was addressed to Gallagher’s company, he said the website medvi.io mentioned in the letter is run by an affiliate marketer, whom he declined to name. Medvi’s website is medvi.org. He said the marketer used his company’s name in the URL without permission, shut down the website, and responded to the FDA.
Medvi has also been sued at least three times in the past 11 months, alleging that affiliate marketers affiliated with the company violated spam laws by sending unsolicited emails and emails.
One of the lawsuits was dismissed and two remain pending.
“We have a strict ‘no spam’ policy and only send text messages to recipients who have opted in,” Gallagher said. “We will investigate this complaint of an affiliate not operating as expected and will take immediate action.”
In a response to one of the lawsuits, Medvi said it “denies engaging in any illegal activity in any jurisdiction.”
Medvi’s AI-powered marketing machine
The Times reported that Gallagher spent $20,000 in the first month on marketing and AI software (ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, etc.) that he used to start the company, chat with customers, and embed copy and images on his website.
Medvi currently pays some human service providers for legal advice and accounting, but its website states that “certain materials” are generated or enhanced by AI and that Medvi disclaims any responsibility for the “accuracy, completeness or reliability” of that content.
Medvi’s use of AI-generated marketing materials was previously covered by news website Futurism in May.
When Business Insider searched Meta’s ad library on Friday, one ad included a video of a woman injecting herself and throwing her hair in a mirror, overlaid with text that said patients could get their prescriptions in five minutes.
“Take our super easy quiz. Their approval rating is like 99%,” the video says.
One of the advertising accounts, “Dr. Amelia Rhodes,” included an image of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore at the top of the page. No one by that name is listed in the Maryland State Medical Association’s practitioner database or on the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine or Johns Hopkins University websites. Representatives from both agencies did not respond to requests for comment.
The Rose ad disappeared by Monday.
The predicament of telemedicine
Since 2020, the telemedicine industry has taken off, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and demand for ADHD medications like GLP-1 weight loss drugs and Adderall.
In 2024, the percentage of doctors seeing patients online was still nearly three times higher than before the pandemic, but growth in mail-order prescriptions is being hampered by rising costs.
Some telemedicine companies are facing problems. Cerebral, a mental health startup, paid millions of dollars to settle a federal investigation into allegations of overprescribing in 2024. A few years ago, Business Insider reported on leaked documents and health care providers’ concerns that Cerebral was pressuring patients to prescribe drugs they didn’t need, including antipsychotics.
The US Federal Trade Commission also investigated Cerebral’s billing practices, which ultimately resulted in refunds being issued to thousands of customers.
The founder of Don, an Adderall-focused digital health company, was convicted last fall of healthcare fraud conspiracy and controlled substance distribution.
Glick believes many telemedicine companies engage in illegal marketing.
“We’re going to really need the military just to find the criminals,” she said.