Eli Lilly is partnering with digital health companies to boost sales of its weight loss medications.
The drugmaker added hybrid weight loss startup Knownwell to its third-party marketplace of telehealth offerings earlier this month. Eli Lilly has also signed deals with Ro, Form Health and 9am Health.
Related: Eli Lilly denies affiliation with Hims & Hers
Working with these virtual care companies is part of Eli Lilly's broader strategy to make its glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist weight loss drugs more widely available. In January 2024, it launched LillyDirect, a platform that connects patients to third-party telehealth companies that can prescribe its GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes medications Mounjaro and Zepbound.
Eli Lilly's foray into telehealth shows the emerging importance virtual care platforms are playing in the rising popularity of GLP-1 drugs. The pharmaceutical company has no plans of slowing down as interest in its weight loss drugs builds, said Jennifer Mazur, general manager of U.S. LillyDirect.
“[We] want to make sure that we're helping as many people as we can have access to quality care and quality medicines,” Mazur said. “I think there's a lot of work [and] lot of opportunity and continued innovation in expanding Lilly Direct and its services to people.”
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker launched the service with diabetes care from 9amHealth and obesity care from Form Health. 9amHealth expanded as an obesity option in July 2024 and Knownwell launched earlier this month. LillyDirect also provides in-person and telehealth care for migraines, sleep apnea and memory difficulties through those companies and other partners.
Not every vendor can join the platform. Lilly requires its third-party telehealth partners providing care for obesity care to offer synchronous visits as an option to patients and integrate with patients’ primary care clinicians, Mazur said. The company has also developed a benchmark of quality standards and condition-specific expertise guidance for its partners to fulfill, she said.
Telehealth companies working with Eli Lilly for metabolic conditions say the platform is an opportunity to increase access for their customers amid the competitive virtual care GLP-1 landscape. Form Health's founder and CEO Evan Richardson said while its core business is with self-insured employers, the arrangement with Eli Lilly has brought in an undisclosed percentage of patients.
“We’re a reimbursed business. We work with employers, we work with insurance carriers,” Richardson said. “L[illy]D[irect], is not about, how do we compete to get the most share. It’s about expanding access."
Like Form Health, Knownwell joined up with LillyDirect to expand its reach across all 50 states, said founder and CEO Brooke Boyarsky Pratt in a statement. Knownwell expects patients on the platform will evaluate options by checking in-network status, whether a membership fees was charged or if in-person care was available, Boyarsky Pratt said.
A spokesperson from 9am Health declined to comment.
The LillyDirect site does not currently verify benefits or provide upfront pricing. Users select a telehealth company and then go to that company's website.
Amazon has taken a somewhat similar approach to its telehealth marketplace offering. As have other companies in the weight loss space, said Beth Mosier, director of healthcare and life sciences M&A at consulting firm West Monroe. Companies such as Hims and Hers, Ro and Noom are providing patients access to wraparound services and upfront pricing in addition to the medications. Mosier expects Eli Lilly to follow suit.
“I do think that telemedicine and direct-to-consumer models of [companies like] Hims and Hers laid the groundwork,” Mosier said. “Now, [Lilly and others] are like, ‘That's a great idea. We can do that too.’”
LillyDirect also operates a self-pay pharmacy arm through dispensing provider Gifthealth. Gifthealth contracts with certain telehealth platforms including Noom, Teladoc and LifeMD to provide streamlined access for patients with prescriptions to Zepbound single-dose vials. Telehealth company, Ro, is also working in a similar fashion with Lilly to offer patients access to branded medications for around $500 per month.
But it's not all love between the telehealth world and Eli Lilly. Some companies have a more adversarial relationship with the pharmaceutical giant. Hims & Hers posted a blog on April 1 that said it was expanding access to brand name weight loss drugs such as Zepbound. Hours later, Eli Lilly said in a statement it had no affiliation with the telehealth company.
