Latest news with #LillyDirect
Business Wire
6 days ago
- Health
- Business Wire
AgelessRx Broadens GLP-1 Weight Care Options to Advance Longevity-First Healthcare
ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AgelessRx, a pioneer in longevity and telehealth solutions, is expanding its suite of GLP-1 offerings to better serve customers seeking sustainable, medically guided solutions. The updated offering includes access to Zepbound® via LillyDirect® and the introduction of Compounded Liraglutide + B12. This expansion reflects AgelessRx's mission to make science-backed, personalized longevity care more accessible, offering a range of clinically appropriate GLP-1 therapies that support better metabolic health and, in turn, potentially improve lifespan and healthspan. Weight is one of the most modifiable risk factors affecting healthy aging. Elevated BMI is strongly associated with reduced life expectancy, insulin resistance, and age-related disease. For people who've struggled to achieve a lower BMI through lifestyle alone, GLP-1s have been a promising solution. The GLP-1 category is projected to exceed $322.85 billion globally by 2034, with rapid growth at 21.3% CAGR, driven by public demand for obesity and metabolic health solutions that target the biology behind weight gain. As a longevity-first platform, AgelessRx is uniquely positioned to guide customers through safe, personalized use of these therapies as part of a broader preventative care model. AgelessRx clinicians will evaluate eligibility and, if appropriate, prescribe Zepbound® for fulfillment via LillyDirect®, Eli Lilly's direct-to-patient pharmacy. AgelessRx will provide full prescription management and clinical oversight for $50/month, including titration guidance, side-effect monitoring, as well as ongoing care and education to provide an additional layer of longevity-focused support. If eligible, patients can access Zepbound® single-dose vials directly from LillyDirect®, starting at $349/month. AgelessRx is not affiliated with Eli Lilly or LillyDirect® and serves solely as the prescribing and care coordination provider to support patients through their treatment. Recent topline results from the SURMOUNT-5 trial show the impact of Zepbound® (tirzepatide): −20.2% average weight reduction with tirzepatide compared to -13.7% with semaglutide 47% greater relative reduction in weight Over 31% of patients on tirzepatide achieved ≥25% weight loss While full peer-reviewed results are pending, these findings reinforce growing evidence that dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonists like tirzepatide may offer significant metabolic benefits. In addition to supporting access to Zepbound® via LillyDirect®, AgelessRx has also introduced Compounded Liraglutide + B12, a daily GLP-1 injectable. These two new treatments join several other metabolic health solutions, all of which are prescribed following a comprehensive evaluation and personalized plan, providing eligible customers with a diverse range of treatment options based on affordability, clinical fit, safety, and overall health goals. For additional information about AgelessRx, please visit *AgelessRx has no affiliation or partnership with Eli Lilly or LillyDirect®. AgelessRx's role is to provide clinical evaluation and prescription management for patients who meet the medical criteria for Zepbound®. Medication fulfillment is handled solely by LillyDirect®. About AgelessRx AgelessRx is at the forefront of the longevity revolution, offering clinically validated, cutting-edge solutions and preventive treatments aimed at extending life expectancy and enhancing quality of life. AgelessRx also continues to advance the field of longevity science by conducting ongoing research and clinical trials. Through its online platform, AgelessRx provides easy access to innovative healthcare services, with an emphasis on customer satisfaction, affordability, and the pursuit of a future where extended healthspan is a reality for everyone. Follow AgelessRx on Instagram, X, and Facebook.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Weight-loss drugs are already dropping in price; could they go even lower?
The price of weight loss drugs is falling, making them more accessible to consumers, and the price could get driven even lower. Highly sought-after drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound both retail at roughly $1,000 each and have been difficult for people without insurance to obtain. Despite the price drops, the drugs remain costly. Novo Nordisk cut the price of Wegovy by 23 percent for cash payments from $650 to $499 for uninsured patients or people without coverage. The drug's list price of $1,349 has remained unchanged. Meanwhile, Eli Lilly reduced Zepbound's starter dose to $349 and higher doses to $499 after launching a self-pay program called Lilly Direct. The new doses require patients to manually draw medication from a vial with a syringe. In prior years, people would pay about $1,500 a month for the drugs, but in recent months have been able to obtain the doses for roughly $400 to $500, according to NBC News. A May 2024 survey from the health policy group KFF found that half of U.S. adults say it's difficult to afford the medication. Pressure from Congress and increased competition are some of the factors that led the drugmakers to reduce the cost. This has led to patients paying less out of pocket because they can afford the cheaper prices or their insurance now covers the drugs. More insurance plans have allowed for the drugs because they have been proven to treat heart disease risk and obstructive sleep apnea. This month, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found Zepbound outperformed Wegovy in a head-to-head clinical trial. Dr David Rind, a primary care physician and the chief medical officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, told NBC News: 'You're talking $6,000 a year, and that is still probably more than insurers are paying right now.' He continued: 'If insurance is relying on the fact that not covering it will allow people to buy it out of pocket, as a primary care doctor, I have a lot of concerns about all my complaining about the price, these are drugs that we should want to give to lots of people, but it's been really hard to see how we can afford them.' But Rind said not to expect dramatic price drops in the foreseeable future. He said those cuts are likely to come when other weight-loss drugs being developed are approved, which could take several years.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The cost of weight loss drugs is finally dropping. How low can prices go?
The price of weight loss drugs is falling. Wegovy and Zepbound, which both sell for a list price of more than $1,000 a month, have long been out of reach for people without insurance or whose insurance refused to cover them. Among adults who take the medications, about half say it's difficult to afford the cost, according to a May 2024 survey by the health policy group KFF. Over the past several months, however, drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have introduced lower-cost options. There are some caveats — people must pay out of pocket, or the medication is sold in a vial rather than a prefilled injector pen — but doctors and patients say the changes are long overdue. 'The cost has come down significantly,' said Dr. Peminda Cabandugama, an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. In March, Novo Nordisk cut the price of all doses of Wegovy by 23% for people paying in cash, dropping it from $650 to $499 per month for uninsured patients or those without coverage. (The list price of $1,349 stayed the same.) It follows a similar move from Eli Lilly, which reduced Zepbound's starter dose to $349 and higher doses to $499 through its self-pay program, Lilly Direct. The discounted doses require patients to manually draw the medication from a vial with a syringe, adding an extra step compared to the prefilled injector pens. Experts point to several forces driving the falling prices: mounting pressure from the public and Congress on drugmakers' pricing practices; competition from pharmacies, med spas and weight loss clinics offering cheaper compounded versions of the drugs — although many of those are expected to be phased out this month; and the Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of a generic version of Victoza, an older GLP-1 medication that can start at a cost of around $350 for a month's supply. The generic, called liraglutide, is taken daily, unlike Wegovy and Zepbound, which are taken weekly. Cabandugama said many of his patients typically paid around $1,500 a month out of pocket for brand names Wegovy and Zepbound, but in recent months they've been able to get the same doses for around $400 a month or higher doses for around $500. Others switched from compounded versions to the brand-name drugs. 'A lot of patients were thinking, 'I'm paying this amount for compounding. I couldn't make this switch to the standardized versions,'' he said. 'Now, we have the brand-name version of it for around the same cost.' Shakira Grant, 41, of North Carolina, started using Lilly's self-pay program for Zepbound earlier this month after a change in her insurance made her ineligible for the company's coupon savings card. Grant has been on a GLP-1 medication for three years — first Mounjaro, then Zepbound. (Both contain the same active ingredient tirzepatide.) She's now paying $499 a month after previously paying around $550 with the savings card. Without the self-pay program, Grant said she would have had to stop taking the medication because her insurance doesn't cover it, and she couldn't afford the more than $1,000 out-of-pocket cost. It's not the perfect solution, she said. Because Lilly doesn't offer all of its Zepbound doses through Lilly Direct, she's had to lower her dose from 15 milligrams to 10 mg. She has also found the process of drawing the medication up from a vial challenging after years of using prefilled injector pens. She said she wishes it were cheaper but that she's willing to pay the price. 'If there was not a backup option, I would have been left with a tough decision,' Grant said. 'Either I tried to afford $1,000 per month or go without the drug cold turkey after being on it for three years.' Experts say that patients are beginning to pay less out of pocket not only because of the price drops, but also because of improved insurance coverage. The expanded approval of the drugs for conditions beyond diabetes and weight loss — including heart disease risk, for Wegovy, and obstructive sleep apnea, for Zepbound — has also persuaded more insurers to cover them, Cabandugama said. Elizabeth Kenly, 59, of Graham, North Carolina, said she asked her doctor this month to see if her insurance would cover Zepbound for sleep apnea. Kenly had been using a compounded version of Zepbound, paying around $600 a month. But if her insurance approves the brand name, her monthly cost could drop to as little as $25. 'The savings, if covered by insurance, would be life-changing,' Kenly said. 'I am still paying what is equivalent to a monthly care payment even with the compounded version.' Dr. Louis Aronne, a professor of metabolic research at Weill Cornell Medicine, said he's even noticed in even recent months that pharmacies have started bringing down the prices of the weight loss drugs. Aronne serves as a chief medical adviser for Veru, a company developing an experimental weight loss drug, and was the principal investigator in a Lilly trial for tirzepatide. 'They've started to get really competitive,' he said. Still, barriers remain: $400 to $500 is a significant amount of money for many people. 'You're talking $6,000 a year, and that is still probably more than insurers are paying right now' with discounts, said Dr. David Rind, a primary care physician and the chief medical officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a group that determines fair prices for drugs. 'If insurance is relying on the fact that not covering it will allow people to buy it out of pocket, as a primary care doctor, I have a lot of concerns about that,' Rind said. 'These are actually great drugs,' he said. 'For all my complaining about the price, these are drugs that we should want to give to lots of people, but it's been really hard to see how we can afford them.' Rind said he doesn't expect prices to drop further anytime soon — not until other drugs in development are approved, which likely won't happen for a few more years. The introduction of lower-priced options and expanding insurance coverage aren't always a win for patients. Earlier this month, CVS Caremark announced that it will now cover Wegovy under its pharmacy benefit plans — but it will no longer cover Zepbound. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month found Zepbound outperformed Wegovy in a head-to-head clinical trial. The move caused a stir on social media among people taking Zepbound who didn't want to switch to Wegovy. 'This decision is purely based on economics, not clinical evidence, and it is not in the best interest of patients,' said Dr. Christopher McGowan, who runs a weight loss clinic in Cary, North Carolina, and is Grant's doctor. Disrupting a patient's treatment can have serious consequences, he added. They may regain weight, see a slowdown in their weight loss or develop new side effects. 'For patients who have seen life-changing results with Zepbound, losing access can feel like a devastating loss, like losing a lifeline,' McGowan said. This article was originally published on
NBC News
27-05-2025
- Health
- NBC News
The cost of weight loss drugs is finally dropping. How low can prices go?
The price of weight loss drugs is falling. Wegovy and Zepbound, which both sell for a list price of more than $1,000 a month, have long been out of reach for people without insurance or whose insurance refused to cover them. Among adults who take the medications, about half say it's difficult to afford the cost, according to a May 2024 survey by the health policy group KFF. Over the past several months, however, drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have introduced lower-cost options. There are some caveats — people must pay out of pocket, or the medication is sold in a vial rather than a prefilled injector pen — but doctors and patients say the changes are long overdue. 'The cost has come down significantly,' said Dr. Peminda Cabandugama, an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Self-pay options In March, Novo Nordisk cut the price of all doses of Wegovy by 23% for people paying in cash, dropping it from $650 to $499 per month for uninsured patients or those without coverage. (The list price of $1,349 stayed the same.) It follows a similar move from Eli Lilly, which reduced Zepbound's starter dose to $349 and higher doses to $499 through its self-pay program, Lilly Direct. The discounted doses require patients to manually draw the medication from a vial with a syringe, adding an extra step compared to the prefilled injector pens. Experts point to several forces driving the falling prices: m ounting pressure from the public and Congress on drugmakers' pricing practices; competition from pharmacies, med spas and weight loss clinics offering cheaper compounded versions of the drugs — although many of those are expected to be phased out this month; and the Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of a generic version of Victoza, an older GLP-1 medication that can start at a cost of around $350 for a month's supply. The generic, called liraglutide, is taken daily, unlike Wegovy and Zepbound, which are taken weekly. Cabandugama said many of his patients typically paid around $1,500 a month out of pocket for brand names Wegovy and Zepbound, but in recent months they've been able to get the same doses for around $400 a month or higher doses for around $500. Others switched from compounded versions to the brand-name drugs. 'A lot of patients were thinking, 'I'm paying this amount for compounding. I couldn't make this switch to the standardized versions,'' he said. 'Now, we have the brand-name version of it for around the same cost.' Shakira Grant, 41, of North Carolina, started using Lilly's self-pay program for Zepbound earlier this month after a change in her insurance made her ineligible for the company's coupon savings card. Grant has been on a GLP-1 medication for three years — first Mounjaro, then Zepbound. (Both contain the same active ingredient tirzepatide.) She's now paying $499 a month after previously paying around $550 with the savings card. Without the self-pay program, Grant said she would have had to stop taking the medication because her insurance doesn't cover it, and she couldn't afford the more than $1,000 out-of-pocket cost. It's not the perfect solution, she said. Because Lilly doesn't offer all of its Zepbound doses through Lilly Direct, she's had to lower her dose from 15 milligrams to 10 mg. She has also found the process of drawing the medication up from a vial challenging after years of using prefilled injector pens. She said she wishes it were cheaper but that she's willing to pay the price. 'If there was not a backup option, I would have been left with a tough decision,' Grant said. 'Either I tried to afford $1,000 per month or go without the drug cold turkey after being on it for three years.' Expanded approvals Experts say that patients are beginning to pay less out of pocket not only because of the price drops, but also because of improved insurance coverage. The expanded approval of the drugs for conditions beyond diabetes and weight loss — including heart disease risk, for Wegovy, and obstructive sleep apnea, for Zepbound — has also persuaded more insurers to cover them, Cabandugama said. Elizabeth Kenly, 59, of Graham, North Carolina, said she asked her doctor this month to see if her insurance would cover Zepbound for sleep apnea. Kenly had been using a compounded version of Zepbound, paying around $600 a month. But if her insurance approves the brand name, her monthly cost could drop to as little as $25. 'The savings, if covered by insurance, would be life-changing,' Kenly said. 'I am still paying what is equivalent to a monthly care payment even with the compounded version.' Dr. Louis Aronne, a professor of metabolic research at Weill Cornell Medicine, said he's even noticed in even recent months that pharmacies have started bringing down the prices of the weight loss drugs. Aronne serves as a chief medical adviser for Veru, a company developing an experimental weight loss drug, and was the principal investigator in a Lilly trial for tirzepatide. 'They've started to get really competitive,' he said. Still a high cost Still, barriers remain: $400 to $500 is a significant amount of money for many people. 'You're talking $6,000 a year, and that is still probably more than insurers are paying right now' with discounts, said Dr. David Rind, a primary care physician and the chief medical officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a group that determines fair prices for drugs. 'If insurance is relying on the fact that not covering it will allow people to buy it out of pocket, as a primary care doctor, I have a lot of concerns about that,' Rind said. 'These are actually great drugs,' he said. 'For all my complaining about the price, these are drugs that we should want to give to lots of people, but it's been really hard to see how we can afford them.' Rind said he doesn't expect prices to drop further anytime soon — not until other drugs in development are approved, which likely won't happen for a few more years. The introduction of lower-priced options and expanding insurance coverage aren't always a win for patients. Earlier this month, CVS Caremark announced that it will now cover Wegovy under its pharmacy benefit plans — but it will no longer cover Zepbound. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month found Zepbound outperformed Wegovy in a head-to-head clinical trial. The move caused a stir on social media among people taking Zepbound who didn't want to switch to Wegovy. 'This decision is purely based on economics, not clinical evidence, and it is not in the best interest of patients,' said Dr. Christopher McGowan, who runs a weight loss clinic in Cary, North Carolina, and is Grant's doctor. Disrupting a patient's treatment can have serious consequences, he added. They may regain weight, see a slowdown in their weight loss or develop new side effects. 'For patients who have seen life-changing results with Zepbound, losing access can feel like a devastating loss, like losing a lifeline,' McGowan said.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Primary care firm knownwell joins LillyDirect to offer weight-management services
(Reuters) -Primary care company knownwell said on Wednesday it will provide health and weight-management services on Eli Lilly's direct-to-consumer online healthcare platform, LillyDirect. Patients on LillyDirect will have access to physicians from knownwell for personalized services, knownwell said. The company offers in-person and virtual primary care, nutrition counseling and behavioral health services, covered through patients' insurance. CONTEXT Eli Lilly last month expanded its LillyDirect platform to include telehealth providers to diagnose and care for patients with Alzheimer's disease. Telehealth firms have been partnering with LillyDirect to offer Lilly's weight-loss drug, Zepbound. These companies have been on the lookout for an avenue to sell highly popular weight-loss drugs, as the compounded drugs industry faces increasing restrictions on making copies of the treatments. While Zepbound and rival Novo Nordisk's Wegovy were in shortage, several telehealth firms sold the drugs' cheaper copies. The branded drugs have since been removed from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's shortage list. KEY QUOTE "LillyDirect continues to expand our listing of independent care provider options to benefit patients," Lilly said in an emailed statement. The drugmaker added that "LillyDirect continues to evaluate additional independent care providers for inclusion in an effort to improve patient choice and access to quality care." Sign in to access your portfolio
