Lilly's Mounjaro dose in limited availability in US through next month

Reuters
Updated ·1 min read
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FILE PHOTO: An Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is pictured in Branchburg, New Jersey

(This Jan. 24 story has been corrected to say that Zepbound is Eli Lilly's drug, not Novo Nordisk's, in the paragraph 7)

(Reuters) - A dose of Eli Lilly's diabetes drug Mounjaro has limited availability through February 2024, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's website, due to an increase in demand.

The health regulator's website showed the 12.5 milligram dose of the injection will be available in limited amounts, while other doses of Mounjaro are available.

The high demand for a type of diabetes drugs known as GLP-1 agonists, which are also used off-label and are approved for weight loss, has triggered supply constraints for drugmakers such as Lilly and Novo Nordisk.

Eli Lilly continues to ship all doses of Mounjaro to wholesalers, a company spokesperson said in an emailed response.

"However, the market continues to be dynamic with ongoing fluctuation in demand, so intermittent regional pharmacy stock outages are still possible", the spokesperson added.

Lilly's Mounjaro has been approved for patients with type-2 diabetes to control their blood sugar levels since 2022. The injection, which has the active ingredient tirzepatide, gained the FDA's approval for weight loss under the brand name Zepbound in the U.S. late last year.

Novo's obesity treatment Wegovy and Lilly's Zepbound are the most effective treatments for weight loss approved to date and compete in a global market estimated to be at least $100 billion by the end of the decade.

(Reporting by Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)