Lo­cal phar­ma­cies say they're strug­gling to af­ford GLP-1s

(This sto­ry is from our new Health Tech newslet­ter. If you’d like to sign up, just click here.)

Har­ry Webb has seen a flur­ry of in­ter­est in pop­u­lar weight loss drugs at his in­de­pen­dent phar­ma­cies in In­di­ana, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can af­ford to stock them.

Many lo­cal phar­ma­cies are los­ing mon­ey on glucagon-like pep­tide-1 (GLP-1) re­cep­tor ag­o­nists like No­vo Nordisk’s Ozem­pic and We­govy as re­im­burse­ment rates come in be­low ac­qui­si­tion cost, ac­cord­ing to an in­for­mal sur­vey from the Na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Phar­ma­cists As­so­ci­a­tion. Re­spon­dents re­port­ed los­ing an av­er­age of more than $37 per 30-day sup­ply, ac­cord­ing to the un­pub­lished sur­vey. 

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER