Eli Lilly puts Foundayo at $149 a month and Zepbound at $299 on Hims & Hers and LifeMD, self-pay
Two distribution deals in two days put Lilly's Zepbound and Foundayo on Hims & Hers and LifeMD at self-pay prices starting at $149 a month. Lilly keeps the price sheet and the margin; the platforms supply the funnel.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Eli Lilly+0.32% — Eli Lilly, up 0.32 percent today spent two days this week buying distribution. On November 6 it announced an agreement with Hims & Hers: patients prescribed Zepbound, Lilly's injectable obesity drug, or Foundayo, its new daily oral GLP-1, can fill those prescriptions at Lilly's self-pay prices without leaving the platform, starting at $149 a month for Foundayo and $299 for Zepbound 1. The day before, LifeMD−1.97% — LifeMD, down 1.97 percent today, a virtual primary care provider, announced an arrangement letting its affiliated mail-order pharmacy dispense and ship the same self-pay medicines nationwide 5. The Pharma Letter reported the LifeMD deal on November 6 as well 2.
The structure is the story. Lilly keeps the price and the margin on the drug. Hims & Hers+5.53% — Hims & Hers, up 5.53 percent today contributes the consultation, the prescribers, the 24/7 care team and the customer funnel, and carries its own membership costs 1.
LifeMD's chief executive Justin Schreiber calls it a strengthening of the company's "vertically integrated care model": virtual visit, pharmacy, fulfillment, all inside its own walls 5. In both cases Lilly is renting storefronts it never had to build, outside the pharmacy-benefit-manager and retail-pharmacy chain, at price points it controls.
The deals feed a volume machine
Lilly's US net price fell 10% in the September quarter, yet management raised its 2026 revenue forecast to $91–92 billion on the October 29 call, up from about $86 billion in August, betting that higher volumes more than make up for lower net prices 3. Roughly four in ten US patients starting an oral obesity medicine now choose Foundayo, and new Foundayo patients doubled quarter over quarter 3. Zepbound and Mounjaro together brought in more than $16 billion in the quarter 3. More cash-pay entry points, all priced by Lilly, feed that machine.
Lilly revenue hit $24.4 billion in the quarter it fell 10% on net price
Data
| Revenue ($B) | |
|---|---|
| Q4 '24 | $13.53B |
| Q1 '25 | $12.73B |
| Q2 '25 | $15.56B |
| Q3 '25 | $17.6B |
| Q4 '25 | $19.29B |
| Q1 '26 | $19.8B |
| Q2 '26 | $22.97B |
| Q3 '26 | $24.4B |
For Hims & Hers the funnel this plugs into is real but uneven. Revenue growth stalled to 3.8% in the March quarter before reaccelerating to 38.2% in the June quarter 7.
Hims & Hers revenue growth stalled, then snapped back to 38%
Revenue reaccelerated to 38% growth the quarter before Lilly made it a storefront
Data
| Revenue ($M) | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '24 | 401.56 |
| Q4 '24 | 481.14 |
| Q1 '25 | 586.01 |
| Q2 '25 | 544.83 |
| Q3 '25 | 598.98 |
| Q4 '25 | 617.82 |
| Q1 '26 | 608.1 |
| Q2 '26 | 753.21 |
Novo answers with price, Lilly with placement
Novo Nordisk+0.25% — Novo Nordisk, up 0.25 percent today is competing hard. On November 4 it raised its 2026 outlook for the third time this year; its Wegovy pill took in nearly $811 million in the third quarter against Foundayo's $184 million 4. Novo's US operations chief Jamey Millar told analysts the Wegovy pill's capture rate in IQVIA+2.71% — IQVIA, up 2.71 percent today data looks low because Novo has "a much more extensive ecosystem of partners" than its competitor, and those partners do not report absolute volumes to IQVIA 4.
Novo's list-price answer came in February: cuts of up to half for Wegovy and Ozempic, beginning in 2027 6. With Lilly now signing storefronts at $149 a month, this looks like a fight over the cash-pay channel rather than softening demand; no source states that causation, and the timing is the reason for the reading 6.
The platform owns the patient, not the price
For Hims & Hers, branded validation of its biggest funnel arrives with a catch: the platform owns the patient but not the drug price, which its partner sets 1. Sellers of compounded or gray-market GLP-1s lose more ground: as The Inference reported on October 23 (a compounded Zepbound recall hands Eli Lilly its exhibit), a fifth of US GLP-1 users were taking copies, and a recall handed Lilly the argument 1.
An FDA-approved $149 oral on telehealth shelves narrows the cheap-product case further 1. Hims states it has never offered compounded copies of Lilly's GLP-1s and has committed not to 1.
Watch two readings next week and two after. Hims & Hers reports third-quarter results on November 9 1, and LifeMD reports the same day 5; the platform that shows GLP-1 margin after surrendering drug pricing wins the argument. Lilly gives its first 2027 forecast on the fourth-quarter call, and its US price change is the figure to watch 3. Two cash-pay storefronts in two days 15. The drugmaker kept the price; the question now is what a funnel is worth.
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