Zepbound vials released: “in the coming weeks”

During today’s El Lilly Q2 quarterly earnings call, the company announced that it will release 2.5mg and 5mg of Zepbound (tirzepatide), its popular GIP / GLP-1 incretin drug for weight loss, in single-dose vials “in the coming weeks.”

This is a great news / bad news situation. This welcome news will help lessen the shortages seen throughout 2024, partly due to the complexity of manufacturing the injection pens the drug is packaged in now. If you’ve struggled to get your Zepbound prescription filled at your local pharmacy, this should help.

However, this is not good news if you procure tirzepatide from a compounding pharmacy. Many patients without insurance coverage and those who couldn’t fill Zepbound prescriptions at local pharmacies due to the shortage turned to purchasing unofficial versions of tirzepatide. Now that Zepbound is off the FDA’s shortage list, the window for compounding pharmacies to legally formulate this medication may close. That’s not a foregone conclusion but it’s an area to watch if you source your medication this way.

However, many legal minds say that it would be difficult for a pharmaceutical company to stop compounding pharmacies from formulating peptides — which tirzepatide is — since they are naturally occurring in our bodies. Defending a patent based on a peptide may not be easy.

A Lilly spokesman said it needs to work with the U.S. government and employers to increase coverage of weight loss medications so individuals have easier access to the official FDA-approved version of tirzepatide.

Additionally, the company is hyper-focused on increasing the supply of Zepbound (for weight loss) and Mounjaro (for Type 2 diabetes). That’s why it’s releasing Zepbound in vial format in the starter 2.5mg and 5mg doses.

Lilly says that while the vials will be released in the coming weeks, we likely won’t see a meaningful influx in the marketplace until early 2025. So, if you fill your Zepbound prescription at a pharmacy, you’ll continue receiving it in pen-injector format in the near term.