Despite Assurances To The Contrary, Lilly Has Effectively Levied A Fat Tax In Canada For Mounjaro

If You Have Obesity, You'll Pay Nearly Double For Mounjaro Than If You Have Diabetes

I first wrote about this in December (linked below) when we received a circular from Lilly the makers of Mounjaro, that Canada would be switched from vials of the medication to Kwik-Pens, and where the pens at the higher dosages cost nearly double the current cost of their equivalently dosed vials.

Lilly To Levy A Fat Tax For Its Weight Loss Drug in Canada

Charging twice as much for some plastic and a spring seems excessive, but it’s worth remembering that drug companies are not social service organizations but rather are simply businesses trying to maximize profits.

But what was galling was that Lilly also announced that if you had diabetes you could head over to a website they’d set up and by enrolling there, your Kwik-Pens’ prices would come down to something comparable to current vial prices.

But not if you had obesity.

And currently there are only two indications for Mounjaro - diabetes and obesity, and where the bulk of this medication’s sales comes from the latter.

Here in Canada, of those two indications, only diabetes has received formal Health Canada approval, whereas in the US and the EU, Mounjaro is also formally approved for obesity (on November 8th, 2023 and April 24th, 2024 respectively). Why the hold up in Canada? I couldn’t tell you. But I can tell you that Mounjaro is regularly used off-label by physicians to treat obesity here in Canada which is not at all surprising given off-label use of medications is commonplace.

Very shortly after I last wrote about this, Lilly reached out to speak with me, and in early January I had a nice conversation with a VP and an external affairs lead to discuss my concerns and my assertion that effectively, by denying financial assistance to people with obesity, Lilly was levying a fat tax.

During that conversation I was told that perhaps my concerns were unfair in that Eli Lilly had no immediate plans to discontinue the sale of vials of Mounjaro at current prices. And indeed, the continued sale of Mounjaro vials at current prices seemed a reasonable assurance and argument against the notion that Lilly was penalizing people with obesity.

Well guess what? Just 4 months later and apparently the vials are no longer being sold in Canada and no changes have been made to the financial assistance program to extend it to people taking Mounjaro for their obesity.

Going back to the pharmaceutical industry not being a social service but rather a business whose understandable aim is profit it’s worth mentioning that in my discussion with the nice folks from Lilly (genuinely, there were lovely to chat with), they explained the rationale for their pricing changes was as simple as being what they felt the market would bear for their medication. Translated that means they’re well aware of the desperation of patients with obesity and they’re happy to capitalize on that by effectively levying a fat tax on them.

Really unfortunate situation.