{"id":671143,"date":"2026-05-29T00:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T00:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671143\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T00:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T00:53:08","slug":"cvs-restores-eli-lilly-zepbound-weight-loss-drug-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671143\/","title":{"rendered":"CVS restores Eli Lilly Zepbound weight loss drug coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"REUTERS\/BRENDAN<\/p>\n

REUTERS\/BRENDAN MCDERMID\/FILE PHOTO<\/p>\n

An injection pen of Zepbound, Eli Lilly\u2019s weight loss drug, is displayed in New York City in December 2023. CVS Health will restore Eli Lilly\u2019s weight-loss injection Zepbound to its list of covered drugs and also add the drugmaker\u2019s newly approved obesity pill, Foundayo, it said today.<\/p>\n

CVS Health will restore Eli Lilly\u2019s weight-loss injection Zepbound to its list of covered drugs and also add the drugmaker\u2019s newly approved obesity pill, Foundayo, it said today.<\/p>\n

CVS Caremark, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers, had dropped Zepbound on July 1 last year, while continuing to reimburse for rival Novo Nordisk\u2019s Wegovy after negotiating a better price from the Danish drugmaker.<\/p>\n

Lilly\u2019s shares rose more than 5% in morning trading.<\/p>\n

Zepbound will return to CVS Caremark\u2019s commercial formularies, or lists of covered medications, as an additional preferred option on October 1.<\/p>\n

The move is aimed at giving employers and health plans more affordable access to GLP-1 weight-loss treatments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this change means is that, for those clients that do (choose to provide coverage), they will have equal access to both the Novo and Lilly products, and consumers will have the same copays for each,\u201d a CVS spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

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Eligible patients with commercial coverage can get Lilly\u2019s Zepbound and Foundayo for as little as $25 a month, about the same for Novo\u2019s weight-loss drugs.<\/p>\n

CVS also said its standard commercial formulary template will include Foundayo as a co-preferred weight-loss drug starting Monday, after the removal of a new-to-market block.<\/p>\n

For newly approved drugs, CVS said there is typically a brief lag as it evaluates whether they should be added to its formularies and negotiates discounts with manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate rebates and fees with drugmakers, create formularies and reimburse pharmacies for patients\u2019 prescriptions.<\/p>\n

All three of the nation\u2019s largest pharmacy benefit managers now cover Lilly\u2019s full obesity medicine portfolio.<\/p>\n

BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said Lilly\u2019s products could benefit from more affordable access for CVS\u2019s roughly 90 million patients, which could drive Foundayo sales in the second half of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REUTERS\/BRENDAN MCDERMID\/FILE PHOTO An injection pen of Zepbound, Eli Lilly\u2019s weight loss drug, is displayed in New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[28,97,243],"class_list":["post-671143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-business","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}