Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug Zepbound infusion pen is on display in New York City on December 11th, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Eli Lily On Tuesday, a high dose of weight loss drug Zepbound in half half of the usual monthly price vials to reach more patients without insurance for blockbuster injections like Medicare has been announced.
It will expand the company’s efforts to boost US supply of Zepbound as demand spikes, allowing eligible patients to safely access real-world care rather than cheap combined versions.
Eli Lilly now has high doses in single-dose vials through the “self-paying pharmacy” section of Lillydirect, a direct consumer-to-consumer website that began offering low-dose drugs in August. We offer Zepbound. Eligible patients diagnosed by their health care providers with obesity alone or with obstructive sleep apnea (newly approved use of Zepbound), can pay for their vials themselves at the site.
The company sells 7.5 milligrams and 10 milligrams of Zepbound for $499 per month for $499 per month when patients meet their initial prescription and restock within 45 days of previous delivery. Otherwise, these two doses cost $599 and $699, respectively.
Also on Tuesday, Eli Lily said he was cutting the price of both Zepbound low-dose vials by $50. According to the release, a 2.5-milligram vial will cost $349, while a 5-milligram vial will cost $499.
Patients must use a syringe and needle to withdraw the medication from the single dose vial and inject themselves. This differs from the single-dose autoinjector pens of all currently available Zepbound doses. This allows the patient to inject directly under the skin with the click of a button.
Eli Lilly says these vials will be easier to manufacture than Autoinjector Pens, which cost around $1,000 before insurance, making them available for drug therapy.
Patients usually start treatment for 4 weeks at a dose of 2.5 milligrams, then gradually increase the amount over the week, then take what is called maintenance dose to keep their weight down. Eli Lilly currently does not offer the highest dose of Zepbound (12.5 milligrams and 15 milligrams) in a single-dose vial.
The low price of each single-dose vial will benefit patients who are willing to pay Zepbound and are enrolled in Medicare or employer-sponsored health plans that do not cover obesity treatment.
“We are trying to fill that room and provide a more affordable solution if we don’t have full coverage of people suffering from obesity like other chronic diseases. They have an interview. said Patrick Johnson, president of Diabetes and Obesity.
Medicare beneficiaries are also not eligible for Zepbound’s Eli Lilly regular card program. “In an ideal world,” Johnson said the Trump administration would implement rules proposed by the Biden administration and take obesity drugs that cover Medicare. US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was skeptical of weight loss drugs.
Some people have turned to a combined pharmacy that makes even cheaper copies of Zepbound, as branded treatments were too expensive and had been short on them until recently months. However, the US Food and Drug Administration has since declared a zepbound shortage, but soon bans many compounding pharmacies from making these versions of the drug.
Johnson said Eli Lily “is not a price that competes with the compound,” adding that the company doesn’t believe there is “never a market for mass harmony anymore.”
He said Tuesday’s announcement would help ensure patients are “not relying on imitations that are not approved by the FDA for safety, efficacy and quality.”
Zepbound Vial Release Progress
Eli Lily refused to say how many patients have ordered vials from Lily Direct so far, but Johnson said “uptake is really good.”
He said Zepbound prescriptions, filled out through Lillydirect’s self-paid pharmacy, which offers single-dose vials, are likely to account for the low-to-mid-digit share of the wider obesity market.
Approximately 10% of new patients in the obese market that will begin treatment use Zepbound through Lillydirect’s self-paid pharmacy, Jonsson added. He said firing vials of doses of 7.5 milligrams and 10 milligrams will add to that number.
Released in January 2024, Lillydirect connects people with independent telehealth companies that can prescribe specific drugs if patients are eligible. The site also offers home options if the prescribed treatment is from Elilily, tapping on a third-party online pharmacy to fill the prescription and sending it directly to the patient.
In December, Direct-To-Consumer healthcare startup Ro said the platform would also offer a single-dose vial of Zepbound through a new partnership with Eli Lilly.
