Eli Lilly Drops Zepbound Prices as Weight-Loss Drug Wars Heat Up

With input from Reuters, Eli Lilly, Forbes, and CNBC.

Eli Lilly is cutting the out-of-pocket cost of its blockbuster weight-loss drug Zepbound — and it’s doing it fast, directly on its own platform, LillyDirect. The move marks the latest effort to make obesity meds cheaper and easier to get as demand for GLP-1 drugs keeps exploding.

Starting Dec. 1, anyone paying cash and holding a valid prescription can now snag Zepbound’s single-dose vials for $299 to $449 a month, depending on the dose. That’s down from the previous $349 to $499 range — a meaningful cut for a drug with a list price hovering around $1,086 per month.

Here’s how the updated pricing breaks down on LillyDirect:

• 2.5 mg starter dose: $299/month (down from $349);
• 5 mg: $399/month (down from $499);
• 7.5–15 mg: $449/month (down from $499).

The changes come just weeks after President Donald Trump inked separate agreements with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk aimed at lowering GLP-1 costs for Americans. Those deals will eventually slash what Medicare and Medicaid pay, offer discounted prices through the government’s upcoming TrumpRx website, and expand coverage for some patients starting in 2026.

But Lilly’s new cuts apply to existing Zepbound vials — not the multi-dose pens covered in the Trump agreement — meaning patients can access cheaper treatment immediately instead of waiting for new FDA approvals.

Lilly USA president Ilya Yuffa said the company wants to widen access however it can:

“We will keep working to provide more options … so more people can get the medicines they need.”

Single-dose vials require patients to draw up and self-inject the medication with a syringe, a more hands-on process than auto-injector pens. Lilly rolled out this format in August 2024, and it’s become a meaningful access point: the company says direct-to-consumer sales now account for more than one-third of all new Zepbound prescriptions.

Novo Nordisk recently lowered the cash price of Wegovy and Ozempic to $349/month for existing patients, with an extra $199/month introductory deal for the first two months for new patients on lower doses. With both drugmakers slashing prices at the same time, the weight-loss drug market is entering a new — and increasingly competitive — phase.

The appetite for GLP-1 drugs has helped propel Lilly to historic financial heights. Last month the company became the first pharmaceutical firm ever to hit a $1 trillion market value, fueled largely by soaring demand for Zepbound and its diabetes counterpart, Mounjaro.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s pricing deal sets the stage for even deeper discounts starting next year, including:

• $350/month Zepbound or Ozempic through TrumpRx (no insurance needed);
• A pathway to drop prices to $250/month within two years;
• $50 Medicare co-pays for qualifying patients with severe obesity starting mid-2026;
• $149/month for the lowest-dose pill versions once they receive FDA approval.

With obesity-drug demand still skyrocketing and insurers slow to cover them, Lilly’s price cuts may give many patients a quicker, more affordable entry point.

If you’d like, I can also rewrite this piece in a shorter version, a more formal newswire style, or a social-media-ready summary.