The Eli Lilly logo appears at the company's office in San Diego, California, USA, on November 21, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Eli Lilly on Monday said it is reducing cash prices for single-dose vials of its blockbuster weight-loss drug Zepbound on its direct-to-consumer platform, LillyDirect, building on efforts by the company and the Trump administration to make the drug more accessible.
The announcement also comes weeks after main rival Nordisk announced additional discounts on the cash prices of its obesity and diabetes medications.
Starting Monday, cash-paying patients with a valid prescription can get the initial dose of Zepbound vials for just $299 per month at LillyDirect, down from the previous price of $349 per month. They can also access the next dose, 5 milligrams, for $399 per month and all other doses for $449 per month, up from $499 per month for those sizes.
Zepbound has a list price of approximately $1,086 per month. That price and spotty insurance coverage for weight-loss drugs in the U.S. have been major barriers to access for some patients.
Eli Lilly's announcement comes just weeks after President Donald Trump signed deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to make their GLP-1 drugs easier to get and afford for Americans. The agreements will reduce the prices the government pays for drugs, introduce Medicare coverage of obesity drugs for the first time for certain patients and offer discounted drugs on the government's new direct-to-consumer website launching in January, TrumpRx.
But Eli Lilly's deal with Trump focuses on lowering prices on a different form of Zepbound (a multidose pen) after it wins approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
That means Eli Lilly's Monday announcement of lowering prices on existing single-dose vials could allow more patients to get discounted treatments more quickly.
“We will continue to work to provide more options, expanding delivery device options and creating new access pathways, so more people can get the medications they need,” Ilya Yuffa, president of Lilly USA and global customer capabilities, said in a statement.
With single-dose vials, patients need to use a syringe and needle to draw up the medication and inject it themselves. Eli Lilly first introduced that form of Zepbound in August 2024.
It is unclear how many patients are currently using single-dose vials of Zepbound. But Eli Lilly previously said that direct-to-consumer sales now account for more than a third of Zepbound's new prescriptions.
Earlier this month, Novo Nordisk lowered the price of its obesity drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic for cash-paying patients to $349 a month from $499 a month. That excludes the higher dose of Ozempic.
The company also launched a temporary introductory offer, which will allow new cash-paying patients to access the two lowest doses of Wegovy and Ozempic for $199 per month for the first two months of treatment.
