The American compounding pharmacy Strive is suing Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk for allegedly “unlawfully [restricting] competition” for glucagon-like-peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) medicines.
Novo Nordisk has told C+D that the claims in this litigation are “without merit”, stressing that it will “vigorously defend against them in court”.
Filed in a district court in Texas on January 14, the lawsuit claimed the companies “[forestalled] all competition” for GLP-1 medicines, forcing patients to “pay inflated prices and suffer reduced access” to the drugs.
“These drugs can revolutionise patients’ lives, but because of their cost they are often unobtainable by those that need them most,” it stressed.
Read more: Patients ‘forced’ to get weight loss jabs privately, watchdog warns
“Strive seeks to restore competition to the world of GLP-1 medicines”, the filing said, explaining that this will allow patients to “benefit from improved access and lower cost”.
The pharmacy claimed that Eli Lilly, among other things, “unlawfully monopolized the GLP-1 weight loss” market in the US, it said.
And it alleged that Novo Nordisk “unlawfully restrained trade in the GLP-1 weight loss and US GLP-1 weight loss cash markets”, along with other claims.
“False and misleading”
Eli Lilly, however, alleged that Strive is “pursuing a business model that diverts patients away from [Lilly’s] branded GLP-1 medications”.
It told C+D that Strive’s lawsuit is “wrong on both the facts and law” and is an attempt to “shift focus away from its own conduct”, noting that it “[looks] forward to responding to Strive in court”.
“Lilly sued Strive for advertising its unapproved, mass-compounded products as clinically proven and personalized,” it said, adding that both the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a federal court have said that “those kinds of statements are false and misleading”.
Read more: MHRA approves Novo Nordisk’s triple-strength Wegovy
Novo Nordisk also told C+D it “remains committed to working alongside regulators and law enforcement to ensure that patients have access to FDA-approved treatment options and to protect patients from unapproved knockoff drugs that pose significant risks to patient safety”.
C+D contacted Strive for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Read more: Wegovy pill: First oral GLP-1 weight loss drug launches in US
It comes after Healthwatch warned last week (January 15) that people in England are facing a “postcode lottery” when it comes to accessing NHS-funded weight loss drugs.
Those who cannot access weight loss jabs on the NHS are “forced to go private”, with some making “big financial sacrifices” to afford their prescriptions, it said.
Meanwhile, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved a new 7.2mg dose of Wegovy – three times higher than its highest currently approved dose – for patients who “require a higher percentage of weight loss” earlier this month.
