Lilly will have supply of new weight loss pill for many countries, exec says

FILE - A sign for Eli Lilly & Co. sits outside their corporate headquarters in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)

SAN FRANCISCO — Eli Lilly’s research and development head said on Monday the company will have plenty of supply to launch its much-anticipated new weight-loss pill in several countries nearly simultaneously as it works toward an expected U.S. approval in the coming months.

The drug, orforglipron, won a fast-track review voucher from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that could cut review times to as little as one to two months, from the typical 10 to 12 months for most new medicines.

“We intend to launch in many, many countries around the world, as quickly as possible,” Daniel Skovronsky, Lilly’s chief scientific and product officer, told Reuters at the J.P. Morgan healthcare conference, which kicked off on Monday in San Francisco.

He said the $150-a-month cash pay price will put the drug in reach of consumers who have been priced out of getting the new obesity treatments until recently.

“It’s hard to find a cup of coffee for $149 a month, that’s $5 a day. We’ve spent billions of dollars in science here, and tens of billions of dollars to build factories to make this. Then we’re offering it at Starbucks pricing,” Skovronsky said.

Convenience versus Novo’s pill

Danish rival Novo Nordisk launched its once-daily weight-loss pill in the U.S. earlier this month, and Lilly expects to counter the first-to-market advantage by emphasizing the convenience of orforglipron.

While Novo’s oral semaglutide needs to be taken in the morning on an empty stomach, 30 minutes before eating, drinking or using any other oral medication, Lilly’s pill does not have those restrictions.

“Ours is a small molecule. It’s just like any other pill. It’s not affected by food or water, what time of day you take it, or whether you fast. So I think that’s an advantage for patients who want that kind of convenience,” Skovronsky said.

Skovronsky also said he believes there will be a market for the pill as a maintenance dose for people who want to stop using injectable weight-loss medications - particularly patients on Novo Nordisk’s drug.

Many patients who have already lost weight are looking to switch to a less strong drug to maintain their weight, he said.

“People coming off of the monotherapy GLP-1 - coming off of semaglutide injection - can switch to the pill without regaining any substantial weight,” Skovronsky said.

Direct-to-consumer strategy

Skovronsky also touted the reach of Lilly’s direct-to-consumer sales program, Lilly Direct, through which patients can buy its Zepbound weight-loss injection without insurance.

He said more than one million people have been treated with its GLP-1s through Lilly Direct.

Skovronsky likened Zepbound to Lilly’s own version of what the tech industry calls a “killer app” that can familiarize consumers with Lilly Direct.

He said the company hope to extend sales through the program to other treatments like its Alzheimer’s drug and an experimental medicine in development to lower lipoprotein (a), a type of cholesterol that like LDL increases heart risk.

(Reporting by Maggie Fick and Michael Erman in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Bill Berkrot)