Omada Health (OMDA) has become the second major digital health company to debut on the public markets this year, with an initial public offering valued at $1.1 billion.

The company follows a successful launch of Hinge Health (HNGE) last month, which plays in one of the same markets as Omada: musculoskeletal health guidance. But Omada is better known as a clinical health guidance company for multiple chronic diseases, with an emphasis lately on weight loss management.

Omada began trading at $23 per share on the Nasdaq on Friday. By midday, Omada stock traded as high as $28 per share, up 47% from the $19 per share the stock was initially priced at.

Read more about Omada's opening stock moves and today's market action.

The digital health platform has found its footing in the weight management space, though not by offering popular GLP-1 treatments. The company doesn't plan on doing so in the future either, CEO Sean Duffy told Yahoo Finance.

Duffy said that's one reason why "the capital markets have, in many ways, asked us to come in" to the public markets.

The company has differentiated itself and avoided the pitfalls of an ever-changing GLP-1 market, which was plagued early on by shortages and then disruption after the FDA removed GLP-1s from its shortage list, ending access to copycats of the popular drugs.

Omada provides clinical guidance to patients once they leave their doctor's office. It's a concept that Duffy and his co-founders realized was needed more than a decade ago when the weight loss market and technology were very different.

When asked if Duffy regretted not going public during the pandemic, when digital health was experiencing an investment boom, he said no and added that the company had only begun expanding beyond diabetes into other care areas, including weight loss.

"When you're becoming a public company, you want to make sure to have your proof points out there," Duffy said. "In retrospect, it was a great decision."

But Omada does have the pandemic to thank for its growth, as it put a spotlight on digital health services. The company has grown its user base through partnerships with large companies that offer the services to employees. In addition, Omada is partnered with pharmacy benefit managers, including CVS (CVS) and Cigna (CI) — the latter of which is also an early investor through its ventures arm.

Omada began its journey by serving the needs of diabetics, including a partnership with Abbott (ABT) and users of its Freestyle Libre continuous glucose monitoring devices. It has since expanded to the GLP-1 market by providing the same guidance services, including meal kits and lifestyle change advice, to patients.