A titanium ringa few sensors, an application to manage everything: at first glance it doesn’t seem like the fulcrum of a healthcare revolution. Yet the Oura Ring — produced by the Finnish company Oura, founded in 2013 — has become one of the most discussed objects in the corridors of Washington, and one of the symbols of the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” program.
On June 24, 2025, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said his department was about to launch one of the largest advertising campaigns in the history of HHS (an acronym for the United States Department of Health and Human Services) to encourage the adoption of wearables. The vision is precise, as is the goal: within four years every American will have to have the device. The estimated cost of a basic model is approximately eighty dollars per monthversus the 1,300 needed for some drugs like Ozempic — an argument Kennedy used explicitly before lawmakers, adding that he was exploring ways to cover those costs.
In reality, the question was posed in a softer way, and Kennedy himself later clarified to Axios.com. that the campaign won’t be specifically about wearables, but geared towards inspiring Americans to stop eating ultra-processed foods and take back control of their health. A step back from the initial emphasis, recognized by HHS itself.
The Pentagon and the 96 million contract
Even before Kennedy’s declarations, Oura had already obtained the most significant institutional recognition. The Department of Defense awarded the company a $96 million contract in October 2024 to provide smart rings and data analytics services to the Defense Health Agency, with the goal of monitoring stress, recovery and resilience of military personnel within 130 medical facilities.
The story then took a different turn, because the Defense Health Agency canceled the deal on March 6, 2025, citing a prioritization of resources, not technical and/or privacy concerns, as some media initially reported. In the meantime, Oura has nevertheless announced the opening of a production plant in Texas to meet the needs of the Pentagon, scheduled for 2026.
The affair has also raised controversy due to the involvement of Palantirthe data analytics company founded by Peter Thiel. CEO Tom Hale denied the fears in front of the Fortune Brainstorm Tech audience, explaining that it is a small commercial relationship linked to a SaaS contract for the security certification required by the Pentagon: the systems are not connected and no one in Palantir or in the government has access to user data.
The FDA issue and the proposal for a third category
On the regulatory issue, Kennedy and Oura look in the same direction. In December 2025, Hale published an editorial in the Wall Street Journal arguing that federal policy is out of step with technological advances, and proposed the creation of a third category called “digital health screeners” — an intermediate level between simple wellness devices and actual medical devices. Recall that in 2025 Oura spent over a million dollars on lobbying activities, compared to 40,000 in 2024.
The FDA responded with an update to the guidelines, so non-invasive wearable devices that estimate blood pressure can now fall into the category of general wellness products, as long as they do not claim to diagnose conditions such as hypertension. A step in the direction desired by Oura, even if partial.
The growth of the company
Against the backdrop of this political match, Oura records record numbers. In October 2025 it closed a $900 million round led by Fidelity, bringing the valuation to $11 billion. Estimated revenues for 2025 are close to $1 billion, with more than 5.5 million rings sold by the foundation — three million of them in the last year alone.
The unresolved issues: conflicts of interest, privacy, accuracy
There is no shortage of doubts. Surgeon General candidate Casey Means co-founded Levels, an app that promotes glucose monitors, while her brother Calley Means — an advisor to Kennedy — owns TruMed, a company that lets you use Health Savings Account funds to purchase fitness trackers. Conflicts of interest that several observers have already reported.
On a medical level, some experts point out that There is no solid evidence of long-term benefits yetin addition to the fact that the devices are capable of collecting extremely sensitive data – of a biometric, behavioral and reproductive nature – which current regulations do not protect with the same standards expected for medical records: smartwatches and health apps do not fall under HIPAA, the federal law on the privacy of health data, leaving millions of Americans exposed to data collection practices without transparency obligations. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy filed the Health Information Privacy Reform Act (HIPRA) to fill this gap, extending the same protections as HIPAA to wearables and health apps. The bill is still pending in the Senate.
A ring on every American’s finger by 2030, the stated goal. The answers to who will really benefit from it, and under what conditions, are yet to be written.
