Eli Lilly’s portfolio of weight loss and diabetes medications has become a dominant force in the market—but access to the treatments varies widely across the world, with many patients in poorer nations still unable to access the medicines.
On the heels of its successful 30x30 campaign launched a decade ago, Lilly has now announced a new plan to close the access gap between countries.
The new global health initiative, coined the Lilly Change the Course Commitment, aims to see Lilly’s diabetes and obesity medicines treat just as many patients in resource-limited settings, including lower- and middle-income countries, as in high income settings by 2040.
According to Lilly’s estimates, patients in high-income countries are four times more likely to have access to Lilly’s obesity and diabetes medications than low- and middle-income countries. Data shows that newer drugs take nearly three times as long to launch in lower income nations, delaying patient access by as much as a decade, even though four out of five adults with diabetes and seven out of 10 adults with obesity live in these countries.
“Innovation only matters when it reaches the people who need it. That is why, as a medicine company that puts health above all, we are now going further,” Lilly chair and CEO, David Ricks, said in a September 28 statement.
Lilly’s initiative will take a three-pronged approach: developing future drugs with resource-limited settings and features like cold chain storage in mind; registering its medicines in these markets to expand access; and collaborating with global health organizations to increase training, technology usage and disease awareness in these settings.
The new initiative comes on the heels of the successful completion of Lilly30x30, the pharma’s 2016 pledge to improve access to quality healthcare for 30 million people by 2030. The company surpassed its goal, reaching 40 million patients in 2025—five years ahead of schedule.
Lilly’s new oral GLP-1, Foundayo, is expected to be pivotal to the company’s new push for parity because it can be stored at room temperature, unlike the injectables. After its launch in April, the drug brought $98 million in second quarter sales but still lags far behind its rival, Wegovy pill by Novo, which launched in January.