Eli Lilly has paused shipments of its type 2 diabetes and weight loss therapy Mounjaro to the UK, ahead of a price increase next month that has reportedly led patients to start stockpiling the drug.
The company said in mid-August that it would raise the list price of dual GLP-1/GIP agonist Mounjaro (tirzepatide) in the UK, for people who buy the drug out of their own pocket, to bring it into parity with other European markets.
A 170% price increase is due to come into effect on 1st September, raising the cost of the highest dose of the drug from £122 to around £330. Lilly said the pause is because of “inappropriate stockpiling of medicines” and will come to an end at the start of next month, when pharmacies will be able to resume orders from its wholesalers.
A BBC report has suggested that some patients are struggling to obtain Mounjaro, even though pharmacies are prioritising patients already taking it. The price increase only applies to patients who don’t get Mounjaro through the NHS, which has already negotiated a price for the drug.
The proposed price increase in the UK seems to be driving take-up of Novo Nordisk’s competing weight-loss therapy Wegovy (semaglutide), with weight-loss services provider CheqUp reporting last week that it had seen a 27-fold surge in sales of the rival drug.
CheqUp ran a survey that found that as many as 80% of weight loss patients will switch or come off Mounjaro due to the price rise. With an estimated 1.25 million people in the UK currently taking weight loss medication, and over 90% believed to be prescribed Mounjaro, the finding suggests that upwards of 625,000 people may switch to Wegovy.
When it announced the price increase, Lilly said that it set the price of Mounjaro well below other European markets when it introduced it in the UK, and was “aligning the list price more consistently to ensure fair global contributions to the cost of innovation.”
The move came amid pressure from US President Donald Trump on drugmakers to make patients in Europe pay more for their medicines, as he pushes a system of most-favoured-nation pricing.
That would set medicine prices at the lowest price in an OECD country with a GDP per capita of at least 60% of the US GDP per capita, and raising prices in outlier nations could be one way to limit the impact of the policy, if it comes to fruition.
In July, Trump sent letters to top executives at 17 drugmakers, including Lilly and Novo Nordisk, ordering them to deliver price reductions to patients in the US within 60 days.
Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash
