Eli Lilly launches website to help patients get weight loss drugs
Drugmaker Eli Lilly announced on Thursday a new website that will allow patients to get a weight loss drug prescription through a telehealth provider — a move, the company says, that will improve access to the extremely popular and effective drugs, including its recently approved drug, Zepbound.

The new website, called LillyDirect, joins a growing list of platforms like Weight Watchers and Ro offering weight loss drugs through telehealth, but is the first of its kind from a pharmaceutical company.

It comes less than two months after the Food and Drug Administration approved Lilly's weight loss drug Zepbound. The drug is the latest entrant into the field of the powerful — and pricy — class of medications called GLP-1 agonists, which includes Lilly's Mounjaro as well as Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy.

"We're used to buying consumer goods directly from manufacturers all the time on online websites," said Lilly CEO David Ricks. "It really hasn't been an option that's been provided before" for prescription drugs.

Ricks said the new platform will make it easier for patients to access the drugs, cutting out the need to go to the doctor to get a prescription and then to a pharmacy to fill it. Patients who are prescribed Zepbound will be eligible for Lilly's at-home prescription delivery service.

There won't be price discounts for any of the medications through the website, however, which, at a list price of more than $1,000 for a month's supply and often not covered by insurance, puts them out of reach for most Americans. Patients will still need to meet the criteria for the weight loss drugs, which are meant for long-term use, not quick weight loss.

Some experts, however, expressed concerns about the platform and raised questions about Lilly's financial motives.

"What fuels my skepticism is that the stakes are so high," said Arthur Caplan, the head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

Other companies also offer weight loss prescriptions through telemedicine, but not a drug company with its own weight loss drug, Caplan said.

"There's so much money that's going to move with these injectables," he said. "That creates at least the appearance of conflict of interest."

Lilly itself isn't providing the telehealth services. Instead, LillyDirect will connect patients with the telehealth provider Form Health, whose obesity medicine doctors will work with patients to determine whether a prescription is appropriate.

Neither Form Health nor its physicians will receive financial compensation for prescribing Lilly's drug, Ricks said.

Evan Richardson, the CEO of Form Health, said that patients who are prescribed a weight loss drug will meet over video with a doctor on an ongoing basis, typically once a month.

The doctors will work independently and will be able to prescribe any FDA-approved weight loss drug — they won't be required to prescribe Lilly's Zepbound.

But only those prescribed Zepbound will be eligible for Lilly's at-home prescription delivery service, Ricks said.