Ro to supply weight reduction drug Zepbound vials by working with Eli Lilly

Direct-to-consumer health-care startup Ro on Wednesday said its platform will now offer cheaper single-dose vials of the burden loss drug Zepbound through a recent partnership with Eli Lilly, which goals to streamline access to the favored treatment. 

Ro said it can offer a “complete end-to-end” experience on a single platform and app, allowing eligible patients to receive a diagnosis and a prescription for Zepbound and have vials of the drug delivered to their homes. That’s made possible through a first-of-a-kind integration with Eli Lilly’s direct-to-consumer website, LillyDirect, which already offers home delivery of Zepbound vials through a third-party digital pharmacy, Gifthealth.

Gifthealth will dispense the vials to patients who receive Zepbound prescriptions through a provider affiliated with Ro. 

Zepbound vials are a cash-pay product offered only through LillyDirect, meaning patients pay for it themselves with money at a lower cost than the autoinjector type of the drug. The vials have the “most reasonably priced” price of a branded GLP-1 drug before insurance, in accordance with Ro. GLP-1s, a category of medicines that mimic gut hormones to tamp down appetite and regulate blood sugar, have skyrocketed in demand over the past two years. 

“Patients normally need to go to multiple places to get Lilly’s drug, just like the doctor’s office then a pharmacy,” Ro co-founder and CEO Zachariah Reitano told CNBC in an interview. “This integration really creates a seamless patient experience where they haven’t got to go anywhere else. They will access doctors, labs and a pharmacy that can give them access to Zepbound vials multi functional place.” 

Ro runs a weight reduction program that already prescribes Zepbound in a single-dose autoinjector pen, which patients can directly inject under their skin with the press of a button. But that type of the drug is way costlier than vials, costing around $1,000 monthly before insurance. 

The two.5-milligram and 5-milligram single-dose vials of Zepbound cost $399 monthly and $549 monthly before insurance, respectively, making them more accessible to those that haven’t got insurance coverage for the drug. Eli Lilly began offering those vials through LillyDirect in August. 

“Whether you are covered by insurance, or whether you would like essentially the most reasonably priced branded cash-pay GLP-1, which is the Zepbound vials, you’ll be able to get all of those by coming to Ro,” Reitano said, noting that the corporate will help eligible patients determine which type of the drug is best for them based on their insurance. 

He acknowledged that roughly $400 to $500 monthly for Zepbound is “still out of reach for a lot of, nevertheless it is now much more in reach than” $1,000 or more.

The recognition of pricy treatments resembling Zepbound and Novo Nordisk‘s weight reduction injection Wegovy has led to widespread shortages within the U.S. That issue has since subsided after Eli Lilly and Nordisk raced to ramp up manufacturing capability for the drugs. 

Still, cheaper compounded versions of GLP-1s have gained traction amid the limited supply of the branded medications. Eli Lilly is working to expand access to branded Zepbound in what appears to be a bid to crack down on compounded versions of the drug. 

Patrik Jonsson, Eli Lilly’s president of cardiometabolic health, said in a release on Tuesday that the goal of the brand new integration is to “break down barriers and supply patients with protected and effective options they’ll depend on.”

The FDA is currently reconsidering its decision to take Zepbound off its drug shortages list following a lawsuit from a trade association representing compounding pharmacies. Removing Zepbound from that shortages list will essentially prevent compounding pharmacies from making custom versions of the drug. 

If that finally ends up being the case, Reitano said Ro “will each follow all applicable laws and guidance” under the FDA and likewise “fight to be certain that that our patients have access to essentially the most effective products and most reasonably priced products.”