Eli Lilly is unleashing self-pay discounts across the entirety of its obesity portfolio with new price cuts for higher doses of its blockbuster weight loss medicine Zepbound.
The company pledged to soon make its highest marketed Zepbound strengths, the drug's 12.5 mg and 15 mg doses, available in single-dose vials for $499 a month through its LillyDirect self-pay pharmacy, according to a June 16 press release.
Shipments at the new price will begin in early August, with healthcare providers cleared to start prescribing the vials on July 7, Lilly said.
With the higher doses added to the lineup of discounted vials, every strength of the obesity injection will be available for $499 per month or less, regardless of insurance coverage, according to Lilly. The company first rolled out its self-pay, single-dose vials last summer in an effort to meet high demand and improve patient access.
Despite the rise of obesity treatments from Lilly and rival Novo Nordisk, many insurance plans don’t widely offer coverage for the drugs, leading the pharma companies to offer their self-pay options.
"Obesity is a serious, chronic disease, and access to obesity medications should be treated with the same urgency as other chronic conditions," Rhonda Pacheco, VP of Lilly’s U.S. cardiometabolic health unit, said in a release. "Lilly was the first company to offer a self-pay solution for an FDA-approved obesity medication, and we continue to work to expand coverage for Zepbound. In the meantime, the availability of the two highest-dose Zepbound vials gives providers and patients another important treatment option."
Lilly’s latest pricing move comes after its obesity competitor Novo debuted a one-time offer for its Wegovy in May, allowing self-paying patients to access a one-month supply of the obesity drug for $199 through June 30 and cutting the price after that to $499 a month for cash-paying customers.
The Novo discounts were meant to scoop up patients who were previously taking compounded versions of semaglutide before compounders were officially blocked from producing the GLP-1 copycats on May 22. The battle against compounders was one waged by both Novo and Lilly, including through the filing of numerous lawsuits.