Eli Lilly hikes price of Mounjaro in UK amid Trump pressure

Eli Lilly on Thursday said it’s raising the list price of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro within the U.K. starting in September, as President Donald Trump pressures drugmakers to lower U.S. drug prices and hike them abroad.

In a press release, Eli Lilly said it reached an agreement with the U.K. government to extend the list price of the weekly injection, while “maintaining access” for patients covered under the publicly funded health-care system, the National Health Service, or NHS. 

Eli Lilly told CNBC that the worth hike is not going to affect the drug’s availability under NHS, and it desires to work with the federal government to spice up access. The corporate added that it doesn’t determine prices that personal health-care providers set, but is working with them to make sure access to Mounjaro. 

In a press release on Thursday, NHS said Mounjaro’s list price increase “is not going to affect NHS commissioning of tirzepatide in England for eligible people living with obesity, based on clinical priority, or as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.” Tirzepatide is the energetic ingredient in Mounjaro and its counterpart for weight reduction, Zepbound.

Mounjaro’s current list price within the UK ranges from £92 (about $124.89) to £122 a month, depending on the dose size, in response to Eli Lilly. The drug’s recent list price will increase to between £133 and £330 starting on Sept. 1. 

The corporate added that it’s working with certain governments and expects to make pricing adjustments in those countries by that date. Within the U.S., the list price for a month’s supply of Mounjaro is $1,079.77 before insurance and other rebates. 

Eli Lilly said it supports the Trump administration’s goal of keeping the U.S. the “world’s leading destination for biopharmaceutical research and manufacturing, and the target of more fairly sharing the prices of breakthrough medical research across developed countries.” 

“This rebalancing could also be difficult, nevertheless it means the costs for medicines paid by governments and health systems need to extend in other developed markets like Europe in an effort to make them lower within the US,” the corporate said within the statement.

The announcement comes after Trump in July sent separate letters to 17 drugmakers, including Eli Lilly, calling on them to take steps to lower drug prices by Sept. 29. The move built on the president’s executive order in May reviving a controversial plan – the “most favored nation” policy – that goals to slash drug costs by tying the costs of some medicines within the U.S. to the significantly lower ones abroad.

U.S. prescription drug prices are two-to-three times higher on average than those in other developed nations – and as much as 10 times greater than in certain countries, in response to the Rand Corp., a public policy think tank. Trump has said he desires to narrow that gap to stop Americans from being “ripped off.”

Eli Lilly’s announcement on Thursday comes because the industry braces for Trump’s planned tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the U.S. In its statement, the corporate said it opposes those tariffs, arguing they’ll “raise costs, limit patient access, and undermine American leadership, especially for firms already investing heavily in domestic manufacturing.”

In recent months, Eli Lilly was amongst several drugmakers to announce recent plans to speculate in U.S. manufacturing sites.