Eli Lilly and Company The company on Tuesday launched a new form of its weight-loss drug Zepbound at about half its usual monthly list price to reach the millions of patients who don’t have insurance for the popular shot, such as those with Medicare.
The move also aims to expand Zepbound’s availability in the U.S. as demand surges and ensure that eligible patients can safely access the real treatment as cheaper copycat versions gain traction.
The company currently offers 2.5 mg and 5 mg single-dose vials of Zepbound through its direct-to-consumer website, priced at $399 and $549 per month, respectively. Patients usually start treatment with a 2.5 mg dose, gradually increase the dose, and then take what is called a maintenance dose to maintain weight.
List prices for Zepbound and other popular weight loss drugs, e.g. Novo NordiskWegovy costs about $1,000 per month, not including insurance and other rebates. The treatments are part of a blockbuster class of drugs called GLP-1, which mimic certain gut hormones to suppress appetite and regulate blood sugar in humans.
Patients need to use a syringe and needle to draw the medication from the container. single dose vial –Eli Lilly on Tuesday released a version of Zepbound — and self-injection. Unlike a single dose automatic injection penAll Zepbound doses are currently available in a form that patients can inject directly under the skin with the click of a button.
Lilly said the vials will Create additional supply capacity Because they are easier to manufacture than auto-injection pens.
The lower price will benefit patients who are willing to pay for Zepbound themselves and enroll in Medicare or employer-sponsored health plans, Patrik Jonsson, president of diabetes and obesity at Eli Lilly, said in an interview. Obesity treatment is not currently covered.
He noted that Medicare beneficiaries also don’t qualify for Eli Lilly Debit card plan For Zepp Bond. One plan allows people with Zepbound insurance to pay as little as $25 out-of-pocket, while the other allows people whose insurance doesn’t cover the drug to pay as little as $550.
Allowing patients to pay directly for a single dose of Zepbound also “enables transparent pricing by eliminating third-party supply chain entities,” the company added in a press release.
“There will be no markups, which we think is very important … for consumers to have this predictability in terms of pricing,” Jonsson said.
On March 28, 2024, Eli Lilly and Company’s Zepbound injection pen was installed in Brooklyn, New York.
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Patients with a valid prescription can purchase single-dose vials from the new “self-pharmacy” section on LillyDirect, the company’s direct-to-consumer website. Eli Lilly is partnering with third-party digital pharmacies to gift healthwhich will electronically process prescriptions and package and ship vials to eligible patients.
People also have the option of purchasing syringes and needles from Eli Lilly’s website and can get information on how to properly use the vials to inject Zepbound.
LillyDirect, which launched in January, connects people with independent telemedicine companies that can prescribe certain medications if the patient qualifies. If the prescribed treatment is from Eli Lilly and Company, the site also offers a home delivery option, utilizing a third-party online pharmacy to fill the prescription and send it directly to the patient.
Eli Lilly said in a news release that distributing vials through the website will ensure that patients and health care providers receive “authentic” Zepbound. The move builds on the company’s efforts “to help protect the public from the dangers posed by the proliferation of counterfeit, counterfeit, unsafe or untested versions of Lilly’s medicines,” according to the release.
During the shortage, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed compounding pharmacies to produce versions of drugs that were essentially copies of brand-name drugs. Compounded drugs are customized alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet the needs of specific patients.
But Zepbound and Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Mounjaro are both protected by patents in the United States.
Eli Lilly said this raises questions about the products sold and marketed to consumers by some compounding pharmacies and other clinics. The company and its rival Novo Nordisk have both stepped in over the past year to address illegal versions of weight loss and diabetes treatments, suing health clinics, medical spas and compounding pharmacies across the United States.
All doses of Zepbound are now listed on the FDA’s Drug Shortage Database. Still, in the past six months, thousands of online platforms have emerged offering combined versions of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s diet pills, Jonsson said.
“We believe that the U.S. population is actually the target of … untested, unapproved, unregulated anti-obesity drugs that we know are far from always containing what they should be,” he said. “This is also an opportunity to ensure that consumers in need have access to FDA-approved, high-quality tezepatide.”
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