Weight-Loss Drug Zepbound Faces Supply Issues

— Following weight-loss sign, clients battle to acquire tirzepatide

by
Sophie PutkaEnterprise & & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today
April 2, 2024

Another popular weight-loss drug remains in brief supply.

Dosages of tirzepatide (Zepbound) are rare, specialists informed MedPage Todayalthough the injectable has actually not been noted in the FDA Drug Shortage Database since today.

Another variation of tirzepatide, for type 2 diabetes (Mounjaro), has actually been on the FDA scarcity list given that December 2022.

As prescriptions for the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist go unfilled, clients are having pandemic flashbacks, according to one doctor.

Jody Dushay, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, informed MedPage Today that a person of her clients got a refill for a GLP-1 agonist and joked that “she seemed like she was purchasing bathroom tissue throughout COVID; she’s going to take it home on the T [train] and she seems like she needs to additional safeguard it.”

“There is no Zepbound readily available and [it is] out of stock. Clients have actually been frenzied and it has actually been disorderly,” Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, informed MedPage Today in an e-mail. “It pertains to supply and need and the makers have actually rather ignored the demand/supply chain problem.”

Srivastava and Dushay provided their handles how the circumstance got so bad. “It pertains to supply and need, and the producers have actually rather undervalued the demand/supply chain concern,” Srivastava mentioned in an e-mail to MedPage Today

Dushay stated she presumed the lack was due partly to insurance protection broadening to consist of Zepbound after it struck the U.S. market in December 2023“At initially, there wasn’t much insurance protection, and after that– it’s practically been week to week– extra insurance provider were authorizing it,” she stated. “I’m getting a great deal of approvals, method more approvals than rejections, I would state, over the previous month, and even around over the previous number of weeks.”

Dushay kept in mind that all drugs in this class, consisting of the hit semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), have eventually tested challenging to gain access to in the middle of continuing periodic scarcities. She likewise warned that the scenario might become worse if a cardiovascular (CV) indicator for tirzepatide is authorized. “If there are information with tirzepatide that reveal CV advantage, comparable to what they discovered in Wegovy … I believe the lacks will speed up,” Dushay stated.

Ethan Melillo, PharmD, a senior supervisor of incorporated health at L’Oreal who formerly worked as a diabetes pharmacist, stated he thinks clients changing from Wegovy to Zepbound are increasing need and straining supply.

“There’s more weight reduction with Zepbound, so that’s why a great deal of individuals are changing, which’s why you most likely saw the exact same thing with Mounjaro,” Melillo informed MedPage Today“Just since individuals are observing the higher weight reduction, however it makes good sense since [of] the system of action– how it does not work simply on GLP-1 however likewise deals with GIP [glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide] .”

Dushay kept in mind that since of “spotty” scarcities for the numerous action dosages of tirzepatideclients have actually asked her if they can avoid a dosage. Going from 2.5 mg to 7.5 mg, and bypassing the advised 5-mg dosage. Regularly she might take them down a dosage, for instance, from 10-mg injections to 7.5 mg, Dushay stated.

An Eli Lilly business representative informed MedPage Today in an e-mail that”[w]hile Lilly continues to make and deliver all dosages of Zepbound, due to the extraordinary need for these medications, some clients might experience problem when attempting to fill their prescription at their drug store. We acknowledge this scenario might trigger a disturbance in individuals’s treatment programs. … We remain in routine contact with the FDA to supply updates on supply, and they will follow their procedure to upgrade the Drug Shortages Database.”

The FDA has actually not reacted to MedPage Today’s ask for remark since press time.

Srivastava mentioned that “considered that higher than 40% of the U.S. population has weight problemsthese … medications are more like aspirin or statins, offered their advantages in [cardiovascular] illness and other medical conditions, combined with high effectiveness compared to other FDA-approved weight problems medications“