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Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

independent.co.uk

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Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#11

Post by Bluecobra »

> When someone takes an anti-obesity medication like Mounjaro, the amount of fat the body wants to maintain is re-regulated, usually to a lower weight. “When you take the medication away, that defended fat mass goes back up, and weight is regained,” Jastreboff said. “In order to continue to maintain the new re-regulated defended fat mass, and weight reduction, you have to continue taking the medication.”

This doesn’t seem worth it to me. I’m sure a lot of people would like to lose 25lbs but you’re making a deal with the devil to get it. It almost makes me think they design these drugs to make a recurring revenue stream instead of fixing the issue permanently.

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#13

Post by smallpipe »

The obese are mad at the diabetics, the diabetics are mad at the obese, while they should be mad at their failure of politicians who won’t regulate the drug market like any other functioning democracy. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#14

Post by pg_bot »

falcolas wrote: post #12

The company that gouges customers for life saving insulin (edit: not epipens) gouges customers for another life saving drug. Capitalism, ho! (If you accept that obesity kills, reducing obesity saves everyone’s money and lives)

Epipens are made by Mylan, Eli Lilly makes Mounjaro.

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#15

Post by NotPavlovsDog »

Tragic to observe the typical Dallas Buyers Club dynamic at play. People are coordinating online and locally and doing border runs for the Mexico-available GLP-1 predecessors.

The Mounjaro patent appears to be until '39, with no generics available at the moment.

As one of the patients states in the article, obesity may very well lead them to diabetes. People will die. And with the shortage affecting current diabetics, they are dying now.

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#16

Post by lm28469 »

Bluecobra wrote: post #11

> When someone takes an anti-obesity medication like Mounjaro, the amount of fat the body wants to maintain is re-regulated, usually to a lower weight. “When you take the medication away, that defended fat mass goes back up, and weight is regained,” Jastreboff said. “In order to continue to maintain the new re-regulated defended fat mass, and weight reduction, you have to continue taking the medication.” This doesn’t…

> instead of fixing the issue permanently.

That would require a major cultural shift, we're far far away from that

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#17

Post by lm28469 »

smallpipe wrote: post #13

The obese are mad at the diabetics, the diabetics are mad at the obese, while they should be mad at their failure of politicians who won’t regulate the drug market like any other functioning democracy. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so tragic

> who won’t regulate the drug market

And the food industry, the real root cause of all of this

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#18

Post by nordsieck »

falcolas wrote: post #12

The company that gouges customers for life saving insulin (edit: not epipens) gouges customers for another life saving drug. Capitalism, ho! (If you accept that obesity kills, reducing obesity saves everyone’s money and lives)

> (If you accept that obesity kills, reducing obesity saves everyone’s money and lives)

That seems like a ... strange argument.

If that is a very poorly phrased way of saying that reducing obesity will extend peoples' working lives, that's certainly true.

But otherwise, everyone dies in the end. Is it really that much more expensive to die as a middle aged overweight person than a healthy weight old person?

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#19

Post by kemiller2002 »

Bluecobra wrote: post #11

> When someone takes an anti-obesity medication like Mounjaro, the amount of fat the body wants to maintain is re-regulated, usually to a lower weight. “When you take the medication away, that defended fat mass goes back up, and weight is regained,” Jastreboff said. “In order to continue to maintain the new re-regulated defended fat mass, and weight reduction, you have to continue taking the medication.” This doesn’t…

The real problem is not as a weight loss drug, but as a way to regulate diabetes. My girlfriend is on it, because the other medications don't work outside of insulin which has it's own difficulties. The sudden raise in price and her insurance refusing to pay for it means she either has to do it out of pocket or try and switch to something else which may or may not work.

The real problem with using it as a weight loss is that it doesn't solve the underlying problem. Mounjaro makes it so that you can't eat. Eat too much and you get sick (seriously like 2 bites and you're done eating). Overeating is a psychological problem. The drug doesn't fix you wanting the food, it just makes it so that you can't eat it. Take the barrier away, and you're back to where you started.

Re: Diabetes drug Mounjaro was available at $25/month, then increased to $1k/month

#20

Post by dmurray »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #7
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

I understand that $25 may have been an introductory loss leader but $1k seems insane and short sighted given the size of the market this drug potentially has.

Surely there is a formula that can solve for an optimum price that will maximize revenue by making it cheap enough for a certain segment of the population to pay for out of pocket. I don't have diabetes and I'm not morbidly obese, but I have struggled with my weight, and, frankly, given the hype, I'd try it on my own if it were something like $100/mo.

Maybe 10% of people like you would also pay for it at $1000/mo, and they're already solving for optimum profit (not revenue - presumably they have some marginal costs).

Maybe they can capture the $1000/mo market first and then offer something very similar to those who are interested at $100/mo. Or they have capacity constraints where they can't scale up manufacturing to supply everyone who would buy it at $100, but they can validate their process at the higher price first.

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