Eli Lilly on Tuesday launched a brand new type of its weight reduction drug Zepbound for roughly half its regular month-to-month checklist worth to achieve tens of millions of sufferers with out insurance coverage protection for the favored injection, corresponding to these with Medicare.
The transfer additionally goals to develop the availability of Zepbound within the U.S. as demand skyrockets, and to make sure eligible sufferers are safely accessing the actual remedy as cheaper copycat variations achieve traction.
The corporate is now providing 2.5-milligram and 5-milligram single-dose vials of Zepbound for $399 per 30 days and $549 per 30 days, respectively, via its direct-to-consumer web site. Sufferers usually begin remedy with a 2.5-milligram dose, progressively improve the quantity and later take so-called upkeep doses to maintain the burden off.
The checklist costs of Zepbound and different well-liked weight reduction medication, corresponding to Novo Nordisk‘s Wegovy, are round $1,000 per 30 days earlier than insurance coverage and different rebates. These therapies are a part of a blockbuster class of medicines referred to as GLP-1s, which mimic sure intestine hormones to tamp down an individual’s urge for food and regulate blood sugar.
Sufferers want to make use of a syringe and needle to attract up the medication from a single-dose vial — the model of Zepbound Eli Lilly is releasing Tuesday — and inject themselves. That differs from single-dose autoinjector pens, the at the moment accessible type of all Zepbound doses, which sufferers can immediately inject below their pores and skin with the press of a button.
Eli Lilly has mentioned the vials will create further provide capability as a result of they’re simpler to fabricate than autoinjector pens.
The cheaper price factors will profit sufferers who’re keen to pay for Zepbound themselves and are enrolled in Medicare or employer-sponsored well being plans that don’t at the moment cowl weight problems therapies, mentioned Patrik Jonsson, president of Eli Lilly diabetes and weight problems, in an interview.
He famous that Medicare beneficiaries are additionally not eligible for Eli Lilly’s financial savings card packages for Zepbound. One program permits folks with insurance coverage protection for Zepbound to pay as little as $25 out of pocket.
The corporate presents one other to sufferers whose business insurance coverage doesn’t cowl the drug. Sufferers at the moment enrolled in that program can proceed to pay as little as $550 per 30 days for Zepbound via the top of the 12 months.
However as of Tuesday, the bottom price of the drug for brand spanking new sufferers who be part of that program will improve to $650 per 30 days, in accordance with an replace on the corporate’s web site. That worth hike will “assist keep the sustainability of this system as protection for Zepbound improves,” a spokesperson for Eli Lilly mentioned in a press release Tuesday.
Having sufferers immediately pay for single-dose vials of Zepbound additionally “allows a clear worth by eradicating third-party provide chain entities,” the corporate added in a launch.
There “will probably be no markups, and we imagine that is tremendous essential … that customers have this predictability when it comes to pricing,” Jonsson mentioned.
An Eli Lilly & Co. Zepbound injection pen organized within the Brooklyn borough of New York on March 28, 2024.
Shelby Knowles | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
Sufferers with a legitimate prescription should purchase the single-dose vials from a brand new “self-pay pharmacy” part on the corporate’s direct-to-consumer website, LillyDirect. Eli Lilly is partnering with a third-party digital pharmacy, Gifthealth, which is able to course of prescriptions electronically in addition to bundle and ship vials to eligible sufferers.
Folks can even select to buy syringes and needles from Eli Lilly’s web site and can have entry to supplies on learn how to appropriately administer Zepbound from a vial.
LillyDirect, which launched in January, connects folks with an impartial telehealth firm that may prescribe sure medication if the sufferers are eligible. The location additionally presents a home-delivery choice if the prescribed remedy is Eli Lilly’s, tapping a third-party on-line pharmacy to fill prescriptions and ship them on to sufferers.
Eli Lilly mentioned in a launch that distributing the vials via the positioning will guarantee sufferers and health-care suppliers are receiving “real” Zepbound. It builds on the corporate’s efforts to “assist shield the general public from the hazards posed by the proliferation of counterfeit, faux, unsafe or untested knock-offs of Lilly’s drugs,” in accordance with the discharge.
Throughout shortages, the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration permits compounding pharmacies to make variations of medication which can be primarily a duplicate of brand-name medicines. Compounded drugs are custom-made options to branded medication designed to satisfy a selected affected person’s wants.
However each Zepbound and Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug, Mounjaro, are below patent safety within the U.S. The corporate additionally doesn’t provide the lively ingredient of these two medication, tirzepatide, to outdoors teams.
Eli Lilly has mentioned that raises questions about what some compounding pharmacies and different clinics are promoting and advertising to shoppers. The corporate and its rival Novo Nordisk have each stepped in to deal with illicit variations of their weight reduction and diabetes therapies, suing wellness clinics, medical spas and compounding pharmacies throughout the U.S. over the previous 12 months.
All doses of Zepbound at the moment are listed as accessible on the FDA’s drug scarcity database. Nonetheless, 1000’s of on-line platforms providing compounded variations of weight reduction medication from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have cropped up over the previous six months, in accordance with Jonsson.
“We imagine that the U.S. inhabitants is definitely a goal for … untested, unapproved, unregulated anti-obesity drugs that we all know is much from at all times containing the drug it is purported to,” he mentioned. “That is additionally a chance to be sure that there may be entry to FDA-approved, quality-approved tirzepatide for shoppers in want.”
