Eli Lilly Chief Executive Dave Ricks said Friday that upcoming Medicare coverage of obesity drugs could be a major catalyst for the launch of the company's closely watched experimental weight-loss pill, orforglipron.
In an exclusive interview with CNBC, Ricks said Lilly hopes to have Medicare coverage for the treatment “immediately after that launch, and that will be a bit of a game changer as well.”
He said that's because many patients currently pay cash for competing drugs. NordiskThe GLP-1 pill for obesity. It launched earlier this month and is off to a good start, even with spotty insurance coverage.
Ricks said he noticed that almost all of the early adopters of the Wegovy de Novo pill are new to GLP-1 treatments rather than existing injection users, so “it's expansive, it's reaching more patients and that's fantastic.”
He added that Lilly is confident in its pill's ability to compete and is preparing for a “full launch” in the second quarter. The launch will coincide with Medicare beginning to cover obesity drugs for the first time later this year under drug pricing agreements Lilly and Novo reached with President Donald Trump in November.
Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks speaks during a news conference in Houston on September 23, 2025.
Antranik Tavitian | Reuters
That government coverage will drive the price of pills down even further in the second half of the year, Ricks said. Certain Medicare patients will pay a $50 copay per month for all approved uses of injectable and oral GLP-1 medications, including the treatment of diabetes and obesity.
“That opens things up quite a bit and we'll see where we can go from there,” Ricks said.
Medicare coverage of obesity treatments is a long-awaited measure that some health experts say could expand the market for the drugs and prompt more private insurers to cover them. Ricks estimates that between 20 and 30 million Medicare beneficiaries suffering from obesity and related health conditions could be eligible for GLP-1 treatments, making coverage a “big multiplier in the eligible pool.”
Ricks acknowledged that under the drug pricing agreement, there will be “a reduction in price” early this year. The agreements involve drug makers voluntarily offering their drugs for less money, including selling their existing treatments to Medicaid patients at the lowest prices abroad, and guaranteeing the so-called most favored nation price for new drugs.
But Ricks said volume growth for Lilly's drugs “will pick up in the second half of the year.”
“We think it's a positive balance for us, but time will tell,” he said, adding that it will be based on the acceptance of the treatments among Medicare patients and the company's participation in that adoption.
Lilly will share more details about the financial impact of the deal when it releases its fourth-quarter earnings and 2026 guidance next week, it said.
The pricing deals include commitments to launch drugs at discounted prices and cash on Trump's direct-to-consumer platform, TrumpRx. That site, expected to launch in January, is not yet active.
Ricks said Lilly was the first drugmaker to sell obesity treatments directly to patients through the company's platform, LillyDirect, and TrumpRx is “taking that and expanding it across the industry” to other drugs.
“We're all for that,” he said.
