U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly and Company's obesity treatment "Mounjaro" has been in short supply in the domestic market since the new year.
According to BRP Insight, a pharmaceutical data analytics platform, Mounjaro prefilled pen injection 2.5mg/0.5mL was assessed as "unstable" in the supply index in the first, second and fourth weeks of January. In particular, in the fourth week of January, pharmacies nationwide submitted 1,163 restock requests, but only 151 units were actually shipped.
The supply index is calculated based on inbound request and shipment data generated by the "sold-out restock alert request" service on Baropharm, a pharmacy management integrated solution platform, and public pharmaceutical data provided by the Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service. It is based on data collected nationwide, and the index is classified as "normal" or "unstable."
Supply instability also appeared for other dosages of Mounjaro. The Mounjaro prefilled pen injection 5mg/0.5mL recorded consecutive supply index instability from the first to the third week of January, returning to normal only in the fourth week.
The Mounjaro shortage is analyzed as a result of increased demand nationwide. After its domestic launch, Mounjaro surpassed 100,000 cumulative prescriptions in four months, overtaking the competing product "Wegovy" from Denmark's Novo Nordisk. The number of prescriptions in November last year was 97,344, about 5.2 times higher than in August, the first month of launch.
Korea Lilly said that by the company's standards Mounjaro is not in a complete stockout at present, but as more patients began treatment in January, demand for the initial 2.5mg dose surged, leading to a temporary supply imbalance in some regions.