A pharmacist holds Eli Lilly and Company’s Mounjaro brand tezepatide drug at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, U.S., Monday, November 27, 2023.
George Frey | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Demand for weight loss and diabetes treatments surges Eli Lilly and Company Last year reached new heights. But outgoing Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told CNBC the drugmaker has more work to do to achieve this hard-won success.
Ashkenazi to take over as new financial officer letter On July 31, Lilly’s diabetes shot Mounjaro and its recently launched obesity drug Zepbound delivered unexpected revenue and key investor optimism. Ashkenazi took over as Eli Lilly’s chief financial officer in 2021 after spending about two decades at the pharmaceutical giant. Earlier this year, she was named to CNBC’s inaugural list of changemakers.
“You have to be a really good student of this industry, understand it inside and out, understand the industry,” she said in an interview with CNBC before announcing her departure. “Only when we understand the entire system can we navigate it well. , to bring value to it…that’s my role as CFO.”
Her tenure has not been without challenges: Eli Lilly and rivals Novo Nordisk Both companies are struggling to produce enough treatments to meet unprecedented demand, leading to national shortages of these drugs.
They received weekly injections of part of a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which mimic certain hormones produced in the gut to suppress a person’s appetite and regulate blood sugar. Some analysts estimate the market value of these drugs $100 billion by the end of this century.
Ashkenazy said Eli Lilly’s surge in revenue has allowed the company to invest heavily in expanding manufacturing, ultimately allowing more medicines to reach patients.
“As we start selling products and having revenue and cash flow associated with those sales,” the company hopes to “flow cash flow back into the business to invest in those manufacturing facilities,” she said.
Eli Lilly and Company Not expected In order to meet the growth rate of demand this year or even 2025, Ashkenazi said at the March meeting. But the pharmaceutical giant has made encouraging progress so far.
Photo taken on March 5, 2021, at the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical plant in Branchburg, New Jersey.
Fresh Mike | Reuters
Ashkenazi said Eli Lilly has multiple manufacturing sites under construction or “expansion,” including two plants in North Carolina, two plants in Indiana, a plant in Ireland and a plant in Germany, as well as the company’s most recent move from Seventh facility acquired by Nexus Pharmaceuticals. Eli Lilly also said late last month that it would invest an additional $5.3 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Lebanon, Indiana.
Ashkenazy said the facilities expand the company’s “existing, very large” manufacturing footprint in the United States and Europe. Eli Lilly has spent more than $18 billion since 2020 to build, expand and purchase manufacturing plants in these regions, the company said in May.
Ashkenazy noted that Eli Lilly is also addressing another barrier to patient access: limited insurance coverage for weight-loss drugs in the United States
Some employers and other health plans remain reluctant to cover GLP-1 weight loss drugs because of their high price, which they believe could severely squeeze their budgets. Insurers have other questions, such as how long patients actually receive treatment.
Nonetheless, Ashkenazi said coverage of Zepbound by U.S. commercial insurers is improving, with commercial coverage as of April 1 at approximately 67%.
“It’s not enough to just have a highly effective, safe drug that can make a real difference in people’s health care, but also to have access to it,” Ashkenazy said.
She also hopes that as Eli Lilly and other drugmakers demonstrate their ability to treat a variety of obesity-related conditions, patients on Medicare will eventually see expanded coverage of the weight-loss drugs.
Eli Lilly is studying the effects of tezepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound and Mounjaro, in patients with health conditions including obesity and fatty liver disease, obstructive sleep apnea, chronic kidney disease and heart failure.
Under new guidance released in March, Medicare Part D plans can cover obesity treatment with regulatory-approved additional health benefits. Medicare prescription drug plans run by private insurance companies (called Part D) currently do not cover these weight-loss-only drugs.
Ashkenazy said a bigger problem is the long-standing misconception that obesity is a “lifestyle choice” rather than a chronic disease.
Eli Lilly is trying to change that.
“Our goal is to make sure that society, the health care system and the patients themselves really look at this and understand that it is a chronic disease … and therefore should be treated as such,” Ashkenazy said.
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