Eli Lilly will now sell cheaper vials of weight loss drug Zepbound in order to meet increased demand.
Transcript:
I’m Conway Gittens reporting from the New York Stock Exchange. Here’s what we’re watching on TheStreet today.
The Dow squeezed out a gain to set a record close high for the second day in a row. The move wasn’t big, however, with investors unwilling to make major moves ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly numbers. The AI chip giant will release results on Wednesday… and it’s not alone – Salesforce, Crowdstrike, and HP will report as well.
In other business headlines: Eli Lilly has launched a direct-to-consumer dosage of its popular weight loss drug Zepbound – and this version is about half the price. Now, there’s a four week supply of 2.5-milligram single-dose vial for $399 a month and a 5-milligram dose for $549.
Zepbound is one of the new successful GLP-1 weight-loss drugs on the market. Lilly is hoping to cut out counterfeiters, copycats, and various tele-health medicine companies that are providing this blockbuster class of drugs to millions of Americans without health coverage.
In a statement Eli Lilly said “Distributing the vials via this channel ensures patients and providers contrast they are receiving genuine Lilly medicine, building on the company’s efforts to help protect the public from the dangers posed by the proliferation of counterfeit, fake, unsafe, or untested knock-offs of Lilly’s medications.”
Patients with a prescription who want to purchase Zepbound directly from Eli Lilly will be able to do so via LillyDirect, which is partnering with a third-party digital pharmacy called Gifthealth.
This direct-to-consumer model also opens up a new consumer base since Medicare does not cover GLP-1s and some private health insurance providers don’t either.
That, however, has not stopped their popularity. Weight-loss drugs like Zepbound, Mounjaro, and Wegovy cost about $1,000 a month before insurance and other rebates.
That’ll do it for your daily briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m Conway Gittens with TheStreet.
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