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A sign with the company logo outside the headquarters of Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, Indiana, March 17, 2024.

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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Healthy Returns newsletter, which brings the latest health-care news straight to your inbox. Subscribe here to receive future editions.

Earlier this month, Berkshire Hathaway topped $1 trillion in market value, the first non-tech company in the U.S. to do so. Soon, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly could become the first health-care company to join that club. 

Why? Eli Lilly is riding the soaring demand for its injectable weight loss drug Zepbound and diabetes medication Mounjaro, which are incretin drugs that mimic hormones produced in the gut to tamp down appetite and regulate blood sugar. Revenue from Mounjaro and Zepbound now account for almost 40% of Eli Lilly’s total sales, according to its second-quarter results in August.  

The company is one of two dominant players in the weight loss drug market, which some analysts believe could be worth $150 billion by the end of the decade. Eli Lilly may also be pulling ahead of its main rival, Novo Nordisk, as it shows progress toward expanding the supply of its drugs. 

Novo Nordisk is also investing billions to boost manufacturing. But its own weight loss and diabetes drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic, missed sales expectations for the second quarter in part due to pricing pressure in the U.S. 

Investors are also encouraged by the other possible health benefits of Eli Lilly’s treatments, which could boost their long-term revenue potential. The company has released several study results over the last year showing Zepbound’s promise as a treatment for obesity-related conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea, fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease. 

Shares of Eli Lily have soared more than 60% this year, putting its market value at nearly $900 billion. 

And the company could reach that $1 trillion mark soon. Eli Lilly’s stock soared almost 10% on Aug. 8 following its second-quarter results that surpassed Wall Street’s expectations. The drugmaker could post another blowout quarter on Oct. 30. 

Shares could also get a boost from potential data and regulatory approvals. For example, Eli Lilly expects the Food and Drug Administration to make a decision on whether to approve Zepbound for sleep apnea by the end of the year. 

Eli Lilly could potentially release data from a late-stage trial that pits Zepbound directly against Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy by the end of the year, according to an Aug. 20 note from Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger. 

Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at annikakim.constantino@nbcuni.com.

Latest in health-care tech: Another continuous glucose monitor hits the market

Stacey Wescott | Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

It’s raining continuous glucose monitors! 

Abbott Laboratories on Thursday announced its first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor Lingo is available in the U.S., just days after its competitor Dexcom launched a similar product.

Continuous glucose monitors are small sensors that stick through the skin to measure real-time glucose levels. The devices have traditionally been prescribed to diabetes patients since they can help alert those users to emergencies. Lingo is more consumer friendly, as it’s meant for adults who are not taking insulin. 

Glucose is a sugar molecule that comes from food, and it’s the body’s main source of energy. Everyone’s glucose levels fluctuate, but consistently elevated levels can lead to more serious conditions like heart disease, insulin resistance and metabolic disease, Abbott said.

Lingo is designed to help users learn about how their bodies respond to food, exercise, sleep and stress, as well as how they can manage their glucose levels in healthier ways. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Lingo in June. It’s available without a prescription, and users can buy one sensor online for $49, two sensors for $89 or six sensors for $249.

Dexcom’s new over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor is called Stelo, and the FDA approved it in March. An ongoing Stelo subscription costs $89 a month, and users can also buy a one-month supply for $99 at a time.

I tested out Stelo prior to its launch, and you can read about my experience here. I haven’t tried Lingo yet, but Abbott walked me through the app and how it works. 

One feature that stood out to me is Abbott’s “Lingo Count,” a metric designed to help users understand glucose spikes. That occurs when the amount of sugar present in the bloodstream rapidly increases and then decreases, commonly after eating. 

The Lingo Count algorithm assigns a numeric value to each glucose spike, and it’s supposed to represent how significant the impact of that fluctuation is. Users have a total target Lingo Count that they want to aim to stay below each day, and they can see their progress over time. 

In order to learn how to manage glucose spikes, Lingo users can participate in challenges and access educational materials within the app. I think the challenges could serve as a fun way to engage people around their glucose, and I’m interested to try them for myself. 

On the whole, I thought the app seemed intuitive and helpful. The data is presented in a way that doesn’t feel too complex or overwhelming, and consumers have the option to go deeper if they want.  

I’m planning to test out Lingo later this month, so I’ll have more to share soon!

Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Ashley at ashley.capoot@nbcuni.com.

Eli Lilly on Tuesday released a new form of its weight loss drug Zepbound for roughly half its usual monthly list price to reach millions of patients without insurance coverage for the popular injection, such as those with Medicare. 

The move also aims to expand the supply of Zepbound in the U.S. as demand skyrockets, and to ensure eligible patients are safely accessing the real treatment as cheaper copycat versions gain traction. 

The company is now offering 2.5-milligram and 5-milligram single-dose vials of Zepbound for $399 per month and $549 per month, respectively, through its direct-to-consumer website. Patients typically start treatment with a 2.5-milligram dose, gradually increase the amount and later take so-called maintenance doses to keep the weight off.

The list prices of Zepbound and other popular weight loss drugs, such as Novo Nordisk‘s Wegovy, are around $1,000 per month before insurance and other rebates. Those treatments are part of a blockbuster class of medications called GLP-1s, which mimic certain gut hormones to tamp down a person’s appetite and regulate blood sugar. 

Patients need to use a syringe and needle to draw up the medicine from a single-dose vial — the version of Zepbound Eli Lilly is releasing Tuesday — and inject themselves. That differs from single-dose autoinjector pens, the currently available form of all Zepbound doses, which patients can directly inject under their skin with the click of a button.

Eli Lilly has said the vials will create additional supply capacity because they are easier to manufacture than autoinjector pens.

The lower price points will benefit patients who are willing to pay for Zepbound themselves and are enrolled in Medicare or employer-sponsored health plans that do not currently cover obesity treatments, said Patrik Jonsson, president of Eli Lilly diabetes and obesity, in an interview. 

He noted that Medicare beneficiaries are also not eligible for Eli Lilly’s savings card programs for Zepbound. One program allows people with insurance coverage for Zepbound to pay as little as $25 out of pocket.

The company offers another to patients whose commercial insurance does not cover the drug. Patients currently enrolled in that program can continue to pay as low as $550 per month for Zepbound through the end of the year.

But as of Tuesday, the lowest cost of the drug for new patients who join that program will increase to $650 per month, according to an update on the company’s website. That price hike will “help maintain the sustainability of the program as coverage for Zepbound improves,” a spokesperson for Eli Lilly said in a statement Tuesday.

Having patients directly pay for single-dose vials of Zepbound also “enables a transparent price by removing third-party supply chain entities,” the company added in a release. 

There “will be no markups, and we believe that’s super important … that consumers have this predictability in terms of pricing,” Jonsson said. 

An Eli Lilly & Co. Zepbound injection pen arranged in the Brooklyn borough of New York on March 28, 2024.

Shelby Knowles | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Patients with a valid prescription can purchase the single-dose vials from a new “self-pay pharmacy” section on the company’s direct-to-consumer site, LillyDirect. Eli Lilly is partnering with a third-party digital pharmacy, Gifthealth, which will process prescriptions electronically as well as package and send vials to eligible patients.

People can also choose to purchase syringes and needles from Eli Lilly’s website and will have access to materials on how to correctly administer Zepbound from a vial. 

LillyDirect, which launched in January, connects people with an independent telehealth company that can prescribe certain drugs if the patients are eligible. The site also offers a home-delivery option if the prescribed treatment is Eli Lilly’s, tapping a third-party online pharmacy to fill prescriptions and send them directly to patients. 

Eli Lilly said in a release that distributing the vials through the site will ensure patients and health-care providers are receiving “genuine” Zepbound. It builds on the company’s efforts to “help protect the public from the dangers posed by the proliferation of counterfeit, fake, unsafe or untested knock-offs of Lilly’s medications,” according to the release.

During shortages, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows compounding pharmacies to make versions of drugs that are essentially a copy of brand-name medicines. Compounded medications are custom-made alternatives to branded drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs. 

But both Zepbound and Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug, Mounjaro, are under patent protection in the U.S. The company also does not supply the active ingredient of those two drugs, tirzepatide, to outside groups. 

Eli Lilly has said that raises questions about what some compounding pharmacies and other clinics are selling and marketing to consumers. The company and its rival Novo Nordisk have both stepped in to address illicit versions of their weight loss and diabetes treatments, suing wellness clinics, medical spas and compounding pharmacies across the U.S. over the past year. 

All doses of Zepbound are now listed as available on the FDA’s drug shortage database. Still, thousands of online platforms offering compounded versions of weight loss drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have cropped up over the past six months, according to Jonsson. 

“We believe that the U.S. population is actually a target for … untested, unapproved, unregulated anti-obesity medications that we know is far from always containing the drug it’s supposed to,” he said. “This is also an opportunity to make sure that there is access to FDA-approved, quality-approved tirzepatide for consumers in need.”

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