Madison Muller | Bloomberg News (TNS) Eli Lilly & Co. is now selling vials of its blockbuster weight-loss drug Zepbound to patients for as little as $399 a month as it works to overcome supply shortages of wildly popular shots. Patients with a prescription for Zepbound can purchase a month’s supply of single-use vials through Lilly’s direct-to-consumer site starting Tuesday, the company said in a statement.
The vials are priced at about half of what shots cost, with a higher dose going for $549 a month. Zepbound is typically sold in an auto-injector pen. With vials, patients need to fill syringes on their own but it saves Lilly production time, allowing more patients to get the drug.
The move is part of Lilly’s “all hands on deck” effort to ramp up supply of Zepbound and a similar drug for diabetes called Mounjaro amid widespread shortages, Executive Vice President Patrik Jonsson said in an interview. It also offers uninsured patients a cheaper option for weight-loss shots that can cost upwards of $1000 a month. Both Lilly and rival Novo Nordisk A/S have struggled keep up with insatiable demand for their obesity drugs — a market expected to reach $130 billion by the end of the decade.
Wegovy and Zepbound have gone in and out of supply since they launched, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still considers them in shortage.
While the lower cost could bring down average Zepbound prices in the near term, the additional volume from vials “could prove to be a .