When Will the Short Supply of GLP1s Be Behind Us?

Should we celebrate the news that, in FDA drug shortage listings, all forms of tirzepatide (Mounjaro and Zepbound) are listed as “available”? Is this a sign that we are on our way to the nightmarishly short supply of GLP1s will soon be behind us?

Forgive us for being skeptical, but we’re not quite ready to bring out the confetti just yet.

Predicting an End to Shortage

Lilly CEO David Ricks told Bloomberg that Mounjaro and Zepbound would come out of shortage very soon. In an interview Thursday, he said:

“I think actually today or tomorrow we plan to exit that process.”

Then on Friday, FDA updated its shortage listings for those drugs to show all dosage forms to be available. And yet, tirzepatide is still considered to be “in shortage.”

Not So Fast

The thing is that FDA doesn’t put these drugs on its shortage list because of a transient problem and it doesn’t take them off when a chronic problem briefly seems resolved. FDA explains:

“The Drug Shortage Staff will move a drug in shortage from ‘Current Shortage’ status to a ‘Resolved’ status when all the manufacturers are able to meet total national historical demand. In addition, DSS will verify with each firm that they have built enough safety stock prior to resolving each shortage.”

Tirzepatide has been on the shortage list for more than a year now. Semaglutide went into shortage more than two years ago and most strengths of Wegovy still have limited availability as of July 1.

Serious Disruptions

This failure to meet the demand that Lilly and Novo Nordisk have generated is serious. The human need for these medicines is great and the lack of supply creates many problems. The most obvious problem, of course is the difficulty that patients – whether they have obesity, diabetes, or both – endure in getting the medicines they need.

But there are other consequences. JAMA Network Open published a research letter Friday, documenting the hazards of online pharmacies selling illegal, unregistered, or falsified products. Some were found to be running more brazen scams – taking money from desperate patients without delivering anything.

Of course, legitimate online pharmacies operate legally and ethically, too. But the chaos of the present short supply for GLP1s makes distinguishing the scammers difficult.

So as much as we would like to celebrate the beginning of the end of these drug shortage, we will wait. We’re waiting for evidence that Lilly and Novo are doing their jobs and providing a reliable and adequate drug supply.

Click here for the research letter in JAMA, here and here for more on the Tirzepatide shortage, and here for reporting on the effects of the Wegovy shortage in the UK.

The Black Bow, painting by Georges Seurat / WikiArt

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August 5, 2024