NEWS: Sanders Statement on Eli Lilly’s Decision to Lower the Starter Price of Blockbuster Weight-Loss Drug Zepbound

BURLINGTON, Vt., Aug. 27 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), on Tuesday issued the following statement after drugmaker Eli Lilly agreed to significantly lower the list price for the starter dose of its weight loss drug Zepbound:

Last month, President Biden and I co-authored an op-ed demanding that Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly substantially lower the outrageously high prices they are charging Americans for popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs.

In fact, we said that if these profitable pharmaceutical companies “refuse to substantially lower prescription drug prices in our country and end their greed, we will do everything within our power to end it for them.”

Today, I’m pleased that Eli Lilly took a modest step forward, by reducing the starter price of Zepbound.

The good news is that Eli Lilly lowered the list price for the starter dose of Zepbound from over $1,000 a month to $399 a month, and the second dose to $549 a month.

The bad news is that Eli Lilly raised the cost that Americans have been paying for Zepbound under its patient assistance program from $550 to $650.

In addition, Eli Lilly has still refused to lower the outrageous price of Mounjaro that Americans struggling with diabetes desperately need. There is no rational reason, other than greed, why Mounjaro should cost $1,069 a month in the United States but just $485 in the United Kingdom and $94 in Japan. 

And let's be clear: Even with this modest price reduction for Zepbound, millions of Americans will still be unable to afford the diabetes and weight-loss drugs they desperately need.

Further, at the outrageously high prices that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are charging the American people for these widely used drugs, Medicare would likely go bankrupt.

I look forward to discussing the high cost of diabetes and weight-loss drugs with the CEO of Novo Nordisk at a HELP Committee hearing on September 24th. I also look forward to engaging with Eli Lilly to urge them to further reduce the list prices of Zepbound and Mounjaro that they sell in America.

Bottom line: There is no rational reason why the American people continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. That has got to change.