NBC

An Eli Lilly drug, if approved for weight loss, is expected to become the best-selling drug of all time, but concerns are mounting about who can afford it.

[The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1577), which would have allowed the federal government to expand Medicare Part D coverage to include anti-obesity medications. “Patients tell me that it appears to them as if insurance companies want to wait until they get so sick that they have more of a necessity for a medication,” she said. Lofton, of NYU Langone Health, said insurance coverage of anti-obesity drugs may not improve until more people in the medical field change how they view obesity. Patients usually aren’t reimbursed by their insurance plan for the money they’ve already spent on the drugs, she added. Holly Lofton, the director of the weight management program at NYU Langone Health, regularly prescribes the new drugs to her patients but many, she says, are denied coverage by their insurance. Most [ patients in the trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35658024/) had a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or higher. [ phase 3 clinical trial](https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lillys-tirzepatide-delivered-225-weight-loss-adults-obesity-or) found a high dose of tirzepatide helped patients lose 22.5% of their body weight on average, or about 52 pounds, better than any medication currently on the market. If the FDA confirms the drug’s effectiveness, a “fair” price for tirzepatide could be around $13,000 annually, or around $1,100 a month, said Dr. The drugs have been shown in clinical trials to be highly effective for weight loss. What’s more, Butsch said, not everyone responds the same way to any given weight loss drug. Experts are confident that the drug, called tirzepatide, will be granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration sometime next year. Kelly Smith, a spokesperson for Eli Lilly, declined to comment on what tirzepatide will cost.