Eli Lilly announced a partnership with Walmart on Wednesday to broaden entry to its GLP-1 Zepbound via LillyDirect, marking LillyDirect’s first retail collaboration.
LillyDirect is Eli Lilly’s direct-to-consumer digital healthcare platform and on-line pharmacy service. It affords entry to medicines for sufferers residing with weight problems, migraines and diabetes. Sufferers have the selection to make use of their insurance coverage or self-pay for sure medicines.
Usually, sufferers accessing Zepbound via LillyDirect obtain free house supply, however the partnership with Walmart offers them the choice to select it up at their native Walmart pharmacy as properly. These with a prescription for Zepbound can entry the remedy for $349 per 30 days for a 2.5 mg dose, and $499 a month for all different doses.
Sufferers begin by having their Zepbound prescription routed to LillyDirect through their supplier’s digital well being document system. They’ll then select house supply or pickup at Walmart.
“Shoppers are craving selection and comfort in how they entry care, together with prescribed medicines, and customers demand worth transparency,” mentioned Jennifer Mazur, SVP and common supervisor of LillyDirect, in an interview. “This collaboration with Walmart combines LillyDirect’s digital expertise and Walmart’s expansive pharmacy community … to offer customers that selection of free house supply or in-person retail pickup at their native Walmart pharmacy. This actually ensures flexibility and confidence in how customers are accessing their prescribed Lilly drugs with continued worth transparency.”
An govt from Walmart echoed these feedback.
“Life is busy, and it will assist individuals uncover new, straightforward methods to get their remedy,” mentioned Kevin Host, senior vp of pharmacy at Walmart, in a press release. “We’re identified for constructing nice relationships with our sufferers, and our groups stay up for doing extra of that via making this pickup possibility accessible from our trusted pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.”
Mazur added that LillyDirect selected Walmart as its first retail associate due to its giant footprint and its shared “dedication to make healthcare extra accessible for sufferers.” The corporate has about 4,600 pharmacies nationwide.
When requested if LillyDirect will broaden to extra retail companions, Mazur mentioned the corporate will “proceed to discover ways in which we are able to broaden entry to care.”
A behavioral scientist mentioned that this partnership between LillyDirect and Walmart can supply extra comfort for sufferers at a time when many face obstacles to accessing GLP-1s for weight reduction or diabetes.
“Enabling sufferers to select up a GLP-1 at retail areas the place they already store removes friction and addresses many of those obstacles,” mentioned Dr. Amy Bucher, chief behavioral scientist at Lirio. “This comfort can result in better uptake and higher adherence for these beginning remedy. Past simpler entry to remedy and refills, combining pharmacy pickups with routine purchasing journeys helps reinforce adherence habits. Direct-to-consumer fashions additionally empower sufferers who ceaselessly really feel confused or disenfranchised by the healthcare system, giving them extra management and readability of their remedy journey.”
Picture by Eli Lilly
