Eli Lilly's headquarters in Indianapolis. Credit: jetcityimage/Adobe Stock
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved orforglipron, Eli Lilly's new weight-loss pill, Wednesday and started a ferocious new battle of the weight-loss pills.
Lilly is selling the drug under the brand name Foundayo and says the initial price for patients who buy the lowest dose of the drug directly from its LillyDirect website will be $149 per month.
Novo Nordisk recently began selling its Wegovy tablet, an oral version of the injectable Wegovy drug, with a price of $149 for the lowest dose.
Lilly has not talked about which health plans or pharmacy benefit managers will offer the drug, but it has predicted that the out-of-pocket cost for some patients with commercial coverage will be $25 per month.
Use of that specific copay figure suggests that Lilly might already have negotiated at least some deals for slots on health plans' "formularies," or lists of covered drugs.
Honest Care, a company that helps patients persuade their plans to pay for weight-loss drugs, estimated in late 2025 that 85% of commercial health plans were paying for Wegovy for at least some patients and that 88% of the plans that cover Wegovy require patients to go through a prior authorization process.
About 65% of the patients who get denials win on appeal, Honest Care reported.
What it means: The arrival of the Foundayo pill could help employers cut weight-loss drug spending, by adding competition that will pull down average weight-loss drug prices.
But access to the new pill could also increase employers' weight-loss drug spending, by making patients more aware of weight-loss drug options and encouraging more patients to try using the drugs.
The drugs: The Wegovy pill is a GLP-1 agonist and must be taken on an empty stomach.
The Foundayo pill has a similar effect but has a different formulation. Because of the nature of the substances used to make the drug, patients can take it either with or without food.
The competition: Novo Nordisk today showed that it will take a tough approach to fighting for Wegovy pill sales by putting out a press release openly comparing the performance of Wegovy pills with the performance of Foundayo pills.
A new study shows that one dosage of the Wegovy tablet "was associated with significantly greater mean weight loss" than a similar dosage of the Foundayo tablet, according to Novo Nordisk.
The future: Lilly could soon make the competition even more intense by getting FDA approval for retatrutide, an injectable weight-loss drug that might be more powerful than Wegovy, Foundayo or Mounjaro, Lilly's injectable weight-loss drug.
Studies show that retatrutide can cause serious side effects but helps patients lose up to 29% of their body weight.
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