{"id":11914,"date":"2024-08-27T10:45:07","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T10:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=11914"},"modified":"2024-08-27T11:25:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T11:25:34","slug":"eli-lillys-popular-weight-loss-drug-zepbound-is-getting-a-price-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=11914","title":{"rendered":"Eli Lilly\u2019s Popular Weight Loss Drug, Zepbound, Is Getting a Price Cut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eli Lilly will now sell cheaper vials of Zepbound, presenting a direct challenge to telehealth companies that offer compounded versions of the medication.<\/p>\n

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With high demand for drugs like Ozempic, and a limited supply, a novel marketplace has emerged to cater to customers who can\u2019t access them. Dozens of telehealth companies offer online prescriptions for cheaper, compounded versions<\/a> of these medications. These alternative drugs come in vials, with syringes to draw out each dose, and cost hundreds of dollars less than brand-name options.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Eli Lilly announced that it would start selling low doses of its weight-loss drug Zepbound in vials, too \u2014 at a far lower price than its pens, which come with pre-filled doses. These vials will be made available only through LillyDirect, a telehealth platform the company launched in January<\/a> that connects patients with providers who can prescribe obesity drugs. Like compounded drugs prescribed by online startups, Zepbound vials can be delivered right to patients\u2019 doors.<\/p>\n

The lower-cost offering could expand access for the many people whose insurance plans do not cover the powerful weight-loss medication, said Lindsay Allen, a health economist at Northwestern Medicine. As weight-loss drugs have grown in popularity, some insurers have restricted access<\/a> to them or stopped covering<\/a> them altogether, to get ballooning costs under control. Some estimates suggest that millions of patients<\/a> have in turn sought out cheaper alternatives to these drugs from compounding pharmacies, which can make copycat versions of any medication the Food and Drug Administration lists as \u201cin shortage.\u201d That includes tirzepatide, the substance in Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro.<\/p>\n

Lilly\u2019s announcement also presents a highly unusual challenge to the many telehealth companies now offering weight-loss drugs, and underscores the threat they pose to Lilly\u2019s hold on the market, Dr. Allen and other experts said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMaybe this is a signal to that space: \u2018We will get this market share back from you, even if it means lower pricing,\u2019\u201d said Dr. Timothy Mackey, a professor at the University of California, San Diego who has studied the counterfeit weight-loss drug market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The vials are significantly cheaper than Zepbound pens, which cost just over $1,000 a month without insurance. A month\u2019s supply of the 2.5-milligram dose will cost $399, and a month\u2019s worth of the five-milligram dose will cost $549. The vials may benefit people who don\u2019t have insurance coverage for Zepbound, including those on Medicare, said Patrik Jonsson, executive vice president of Eli Lilly and Company.<\/p>\n

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Eli Lilly will now sell cheaper vials of Zepbound, presenting a direct challenge to telehealth companies that offer compounded versions of the medication.With high demand for drugs like Ozempic, and a limited supply, a novel marketplace has emerged to cater to customers who can\u2019t access them. Dozens of telehealth companies offer online prescriptions for cheaper, compounded versions of these medications. These alternative drugs come in vials, with syringes to draw out each dose, and cost hundreds of dollars less than brand-name options.On Tuesday, Eli Lilly announced that it would start selling low doses of its weight-loss drug Zepbound in vials, too \u2014 at a far lower price than its pens, which come with pre-filled doses. These vials will be made available only through LillyDirect, a telehealth platform the company launched in January that connects patients with providers who can prescribe obesity drugs. Like compounded drugs prescribed by online startups, Zepbound vials can be delivered right to patients\u2019 doors.The lower-cost offering could expand access for the many people whose insurance plans do not cover the powerful weight-loss medication, said Lindsay Allen, a health economist at Northwestern Medicine. As weight-loss drugs have grown in popularity, some insurers have restricted access to them or stopped covering them altogether, to get ballooning costs under control. Some estimates suggest that millions of patients have in turn sought out cheaper alternatives to these drugs from compounding pharmacies, which can make copycat versions of any medication the Food and Drug Administration lists as \u201cin shortage.\u201d That includes tirzepatide, the substance in Zepbound and the diabetes drug Mounjaro.Lilly\u2019s announcement also presents a highly unusual challenge to the many telehealth companies now offering weight-loss drugs, and underscores the threat they pose to Lilly\u2019s hold on the market, Dr. Allen and other experts said. \u201cMaybe this is a signal to that space: \u2018We will get this market share back from you, even if it means lower pricing,\u2019\u201d said Dr. Timothy Mackey, a professor at the University of California, San Diego who has studied the counterfeit weight-loss drug market.The vials are significantly cheaper than Zepbound pens, which cost just over $1,000 a month without insurance. A month\u2019s supply of the 2.5-milligram dose will cost $399, and a month\u2019s worth of the five-milligram dose will cost $549. The vials may benefit people who don\u2019t have insurance coverage for Zepbound, including those on Medicare, said Patrik Jonsson, executive vice president of Eli Lilly and Company.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11916,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11917,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11914\/revisions\/11917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}