What It’s Really Like to Find Affordable Weight Loss Medicines: Patient

• A woman who had life-changing results with a popular weight loss drug struggled to afford it for years.
• She found stability with a cheaper version of the drug through the booming telehealth market.
• Drugmakers have come under fire for high prices in the US, where drugs can cost $1,000 a month.

Tara Rothenhoefer, a 49-year-old Florida resident, says her life changed when she joined a clinical trial for a promising new weight-loss drug.

During the 18-month trial, from 2020 to 2021, she lost more than 200 kilograms – more than a third of her body weight. Suddenly, she didn’t have the pervasive “food cravings” or preoccupation with food that had plagued her for years, allowing her to freely pursue healthy habits.

Rothenhoefer had been testing a drug, sold by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, which later won FDA approval for weight loss in 2023 under the brand name Zepbound. A similar version of this drug, called Mounjaro, is available to people with type 2 diabetes from 2022.

But when the trial ended, she was faced with the prospect of paying more than $1,000 a month to continue the drug or trying to maintain her weight without medication — an incredibly complicated feat because the drug’s effects are not long-lasting. as far as we know.

Now, after three years of navigating a nightmare maze of shortages and lack of insurance coverage, she finally has consistent and affordable access to medication.

She is not the only one.

The high price of weight loss drugs has left out millions of Americans who could benefit, as highlighted in recent Senate committee hearings where Novo Nordisk’s CEO faced tough questions about his versions of similar drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy.

Here’s how she, like many others, found a way around the snarls of the health care system to stay on drugs.

At first, she tried the pharmaceutical solution: coupons

After the trial ended, Rothenhoefer’s doctor issued her a prescription for Mounjaro, but she knew she couldn’t afford it with her office job.

Not a problem, manufacturer Eli Lilly told him – he could get a coupon, allowing him to access the drug at a deep discount.

Providing coupons is a common practice for drug manufacturers to incentivize patients to try their product instead of a competitor’s, especially when it’s a new offering in an already hot, high-priced market.

However, the coupon expired in June 2023. And all he could do was ration his remaining doses and hope for the best.

“My insurance doesn’t cover it. Most people can’t afford it. I had no choice,” she said.

Splitting doses to try to make the medicine last longer

Rothenhoefer did what he could to make the drug supply last and tried to administer a dose every 10 to 14 days instead of weekly, but the scale started to rise no matter what he did.

“I had a lot of fluctuations in weight, although my habits were the same,” she said.

Research suggests that people who lose weight on GLP-1 drugs need to keep taking them or they’ll gain the weight back, so Rothenhoefer needed a long-term plan just to keep her weight stable.

“I’m on maintenance, which I’ll be on for the rest of my life,” she said.

But she has since been able to find a steady, affordable supply and now takes a weekly dose of 7.5 – 10 mg of combined tirzepatide delivered to her door, and plans to keep it up for at least the next year, if not longer.

The promise of cheaper “combination drugs”.

Rothenhoefer said he had heard of a cheaper version of GLP-1 known as the compound tirzepatide.

The active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound is tirzepatide, a type of GLP-1 drug that mimics the hormones our bodies naturally produce to control appetite and blood sugar. (Ozempic and Wegovy contain a similar drug called semaglutide.)

Compounded medicines are customized formulations of medicines provided by specialized pharmacies. Because branded GLP-1 drugs have been lacking for a long time, drug compounds are allowed to fill the gap in demand with their own versions of the same active ingredients, semaglutide or tirzepatide.

Although regulated, these combination drugs are not FDA-approved, raising concerns from doctors about variations in quality.

The gray market for weight loss drugs is vast and complicated.

Some weight loss clinics or medical spas offer injections for as little as $20 with a way to verify what you’re getting, and some online clinics are simply money scams, a recent study found.

Rothenhoefer contacted a telehealth company with a verified, licensed pharmacy.

The price for her combo version dose is $329 monthly, compared to the brand’s list price of over $1,000 per month.

Pharmaceutical companies are pushing back against their low-cost competitors in the GLP-1 market.

In August, Eli Lilly cut the price of its weight loss drug Zepbound in half through single-dose vials — an attempt to lure customers back to brand-name drugs, analysts said.

But Rothenhoefer said if manufacturers want people to buy their products, prices must continue to fall.

“I think everyone would be on board if it was affordable and accessible. But there are people out there who are alive now who might not be or would be in five years if they hadn’t gotten their health under control.” she said of patients like her who now use combination drugs.

A huge relief

Previously, Rothenhoefer said she was constantly worried about protecting the dwindling stock of drugs in her refrigerator.

Now with reliable access, a huge burden has been lifted, Rothenhoefer said. She is no longer fixated on rushing to get ice in a cooler for her medication as a priority and is free to think about whatever else matters.

“I’m not afraid at all,” she said. “My mind has been completely put at ease and now I can focus on the rest of my life.”