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The pharmaceutical companies behind blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs have signaled that their supply problems could soon be over, but many patients are still having trouble filling their prescriptions. NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin reports.
SYDNEY LUPKIN, BYLINE: Bill Coombs, who lives in Boston's South End, has lost 28 pounds so far on the obesity drug Wegovy. But when he went to refill his prescription last week, things didn't go as planned.
BILL COOMBS: I take it every Wednesday. So this Monday, my prescription was up. So I called to fill my prescription, and they said, you're fine. When I went in yesterday to get it, they said they're out, and they're going to be out for the foreseeable future.
LUPKIN: The foreseeable future - he'd been worried about missing doses of the drug after a friend had similar trouble. Then somehow, the pharmacist found some Wegovy, but Coombs doesn't know how.
COOMBS: So I did end up getting it, which is fortunate. But I do worry about what's going to happen in a month.
LUPKIN: The massive popularity of Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound has meant the drugs have been in and out of short supply for more than a year. The drugs' makers have been struggling to keep up with skyrocketing demand. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are the pharmaceutical companies that make the popular drugs. They recently said that their drugs are, quote, "available again," with the exception of the starting dose of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy. But patients like Coombs are still having trouble at the pharmacy counter.
David Knapp, who takes Lilly's Mounjaro for his Type 2 diabetes and has a podcast, blog and YouTube channel called On the Pen - patients taking the drugs reach out to him every week about their experiences coping with shortages.
DAVID KNAPP: They're doing the tricks - right? - all the tricks. They're going up a dose. They're moving back a dose. Some people I've heard calling 100 pharmacies in their state just to find their dose.
LUPKIN: He told me many patients took offense to the drugmakers' declarations that the injections are available again. It turns out the Food and Drug Administration hasn't taken these drugs off its official shortage list. The agency says it needs to be sure the drug companies can meet demand. That includes verifying the manufacturers have a supply cushion of the drugs and have fulfilled all their back orders. It's not clear how long the process will take. Right now, pharmacists can't be sure they'll get their full orders from drug wholesalers. That's according to Erin Fox, who tracks drug shortages as part of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
ERIN FOX: That can mean that you might order 20, but you might only get 10.
LUPKIN: When wholesalers allocate their drug supplies like that, she says it usually means there isn't enough of the drug to go around. The drug companies are spending billions of dollars building new factories and expanding production. Novo Nordisk told investors last month that it has been able to double U.S. Wegovy prescriptions this year. Here's Novo Nordisk executive Doug Langa on a call with investors.
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DOUG LANGA: Further, while demand is still expected to exceed supply, we grow more confident in our ability to supply.
LUPKIN: The pharmaceutical sales reps continued visiting doctors' offices despite the shortages, but they did stop bringing free samples with them. One sign the shortages may be easing - the samples are back.
SCOTT ISAACS: They're in our office frequently. They're bringing samples, they're bringing brochures, and they're telling us that there are no shortages.
LUPKIN: That was Dr. Scott Isaacs, the president-elect of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology.
ISAACS: Well, it's encouraging, and it does encourage me to write prescriptions for medications that I was previously not because I knew the patient wouldn't be able to get the medication. But unfortunately, sometimes, you still write the prescription, and the patient still can't get the prescription.
LUPKIN: He hopes that problem will be solved soon.
Sydney Lupkin, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF 9TH WONDER'S "SEASON COURAGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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