Eli Lilly, Walmart to supply discounted retail option for Zepbound

Eli Lilly and Walmart on Wednesday said they’ve teamed as much as expand access to the drugmaker’s weight reduction drug Zepbound, allowing U.S. patients to get vials of the blockbuster injection at direct-to-consumer prices through retail locations for the primary time. 

The announcement comes as Eli Lilly works to keep up its dominance over rival Novo Nordisk within the booming marketplace for a category of obesity and diabetes drugs called GLP-1s. It also comes because the Trump administration pressures drugmakers to make it easier for Americans to access medicines with a push for them to make use of direct-to-consumer models that eliminate middlemen. 

Starting in mid-November, cash-paying patients with a prescription should buy single-dose vials of Zepbound at discounts of fifty% or more off their list price through the retailer’s locations or via home delivery. Walmart, which operates nearly 4,600 pharmacies across the U.S., will function the primary in-store pickup pharmacy option for Zepbound vials through Eli Lilly’s direct-to-consumer cash-pay platform, LillyDirect. 

It’s LillyDirect’s first retail collaboration because it launched in January 2024, following partnerships with several telehealth corporations. Eli Lilly didn’t provide an estimate of how much the Walmart offering will expand Zepbound’s reach. But Walmart’s nationwide footprint makes it the biggest U.S. retailer, LillyDirect’s General Manager Jennifer Mazur told CNBC in an interview.

Walmart is the fifth-largest pharmacy within the U.S., in keeping with its total prescription meting out revenue in 2024. The partnership could help Eli Lilly keep its competitive edge over Novo Nordisk because the Danish drugmaker works to expand access to its weight reduction drug Wegovy through a take care of CVS and its pharmacy profit manager, Caremark.

Single-dose vials of Zepbound will cost $349 monthly for the starting dose, and $499 monthly for all other doses. That price point is consistent across LillyDirect’s home delivery or Walmart pickup options. 

As as to if patients would select pickup or delivery, Mazur said, “I believe it’s all about individual people, their lifestyle and the way they decide to access healthcare.”

“Our goal really is just to satisfy as many individuals where they’re and provides more alternative, more convenience and proceed to supply people price transparency,” she continued. 

Mazur said LillyDirect has seen “tremendous uptake” with home delivery, but noted consumers could prefer to go in person because they’ve a longtime relationship with an area pharmacist or find it more convenient to choose up prescriptions at their neighborhood pharmacy.

LillyDirect, which launched greater than a 12 months before Novo Nordisk’s own direct-to-consumer platform, has helped Eli Lilly gain ground over its rival. 

Direct-to-consumer sales now account for greater than a 3rd of latest prescriptions of Zepbound, Mazur said. She said the corporate hit an inflection point after August 2024, when Eli Lilly began to supply Zepbound vials for money payment at greater than 50% below the drug’s list price.

Mazur said Eli Lilly shares the Trump administration’s goal of constructing Food and Drug Administration-approved medicines more accessible and inexpensive for Americans. 

“We sit up for continued collaboration with the administration to realize our shared goals and can proceed to innovate with LillyDirect,” she said. 

President Donald Trump is working to strike drug pricing deals with pharmaceutical corporations as a part of his controversial “most favored nation” policy, which goals to link U.S. medicine prices to the bottom paid in other developed countries. 

Trump has to date announced agreements with Pfizer, AstraZeneca and EMD Serono, the biggest fertility drug manufacturer on the planet, but not Eli Lilly.