Weight loss medicines are already falling in price; Can they go even lower?

The price of drugs for weight loss is falling, making them more accessible to consumers, and the price can be driven even lower.

Very sought -after medicines such as Wegovy and Zepbound both retail at around $ 1,000 each and are difficult for people without insurance.

Despite the price fall, the medicines remain expensive. Novo Nordisk reduced the price of Wegovy by 23 percent for cash payments from $ 650 to $ 499 for uninsured patients or people without coverage. The catalog price of the $ 1,349 drug has remained unchanged.

In the meantime, Eli Lilly lowered the starter dose from Zepbound to $ 349 and higher doses to $ 499 after launching a self-pay program called Lilly Direct. The new doses require patients to draw medication from a bottle with a syringe manually.

In previous years, people would pay around $ 1500 a month for the medicines, but in recent months the doses have been able to obtain for around $ 400 to $ 500, according to NBC News.

A May 2024 questionnaire The KFF health policy group showed that half of the American adults say it is difficult to pay the medication.

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Pressure from the congress and increased competition are some of the factors that the drug makers have encouraged to lower the costs. This has led patients to pay less out of their own pocket because they can afford the cheaper prices or their insurance is now covering the medicines. More insurance plans have allowed the medicines because it has been proven that they treat the risk of heart disorders and obstructive sleep apnea.

This month a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which Zepbound performed better than Wegovy in a head-to-head clinical test.

Dr. David Rind, doctor in first -line care and the Chief Medical Officer for the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, said NBC News: “You are talking about $ 6,000 a year, and that is probably more than insurers pay now.”

He continued: “If the insurance is dependent on the fact that it is not that people can buy it out of their own pocket, as a doctor for primary care, I am a lot of worries about that … For all my complaining about the price, these are drugs that we would like to give to many people, but it has been really difficult to see how we can afford it.”

But Rind said that he would not expect a dramatic fall in the near future. He said those cutbacks will probably come when other weight loss medicines developed are approved, which could take a few years.