LONDON: Eli Lilly has temporarily paused shipments of its weight-loss drug Mounjaro in the UK, ahead of a new price hike for the treatment set to come into effect starting next month.
Lilly said that, in order to manage its supply and ensure that patients maintain access, it has allocations in place for pharmacies and providers that order medicines from the company.
There are legal protections in place to prevent inappropriate stockpiling of medicines by providers, the company said on Wednesday. It will resume orders on Sept 1.
The drugmaker is set to increase the UK list price of the drug by up to 170% in September amid a White House push to get drugmakers to raise medicine prices in Europe to allow for price cuts in the United States.
The price for a month’s supply of the highest dose of the medicine will increase from £122 to £330 (US$164.81 to US$445.80).