The news: Starting next year, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly will introduce a new direct-to-employer sales option for their weight loss shots, per Bloomberg. Self-insured employers—companies that assume financial responsibility for their workers’ medical claims—will be able to purchase Novo’s Wegovy and Lilly’s Zepbound for their drug benefit plans at transparent, fixed prices through Waltz Health, a digital health company that helps employers buy cheaper medications.

The offering will target employers that currently do not cover weight loss drugs for their workers.

• Just four of Waltz’s employer clients are contracted to roll out the GLP-1 offering in January, but the company hopes to make it available to 100,000 people by the end of Q1 2026, per Bloomberg.
• At companies with 5,000 or more workers, 43% cover GLP-1s when used primarily for weight loss, per October 2025 KFF data. That drops to 30% among businesses that staff 1,000 to 4,999 workers.
• Only 16% of companies with 200 to 999 workers cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss.
• The high cost of comprehensive GLP-1 coverage, often rooted in PBM contracts, is the top reason employers give for excluding weight loss drugs.

Why it matters: It’s a major shift from the usual model, in which self-insured employers rely on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to negotiate prices and rebates, manage formularies (lists of covered drugs), and process claims. The complex pharma supply chain, which has given PBMs outsized influence, has made it hard for drugmakers and employers to bypass them.

However, many employers are frustrated with PBMs because opaque practices limit visibility into what they actually pay for drugs. PBMs are commonly accused of pocketing rebates they negotiate with pharma manufacturers rather than passing them on to employers or patients.

Implications for the pharma supply chain: The true cost for employers to cover weight loss drugs through the traditional PBM model isn’t public, and we don’t know the price that Waltz negotiated between pharma companies and employers. But employers are very likely getting a better—and certainly more transparent—deal than they did with PBMs.

This move further signals drugmakers’ push into direct sales, both to consumers and employers. More businesses will likely cover obesity drugs for their workers if they can achieve greater cost control for their offered benefits. And pharma supply chain middlemen could feel mounting pressure to shift further away from the prescription drug rebate model that so many in the industry decry.