Adding to the pressure is that CVS Health has retained coverage of Zepbound's arch rival Wegovy (semaglutide), sold by Novo Nordisk, after negotiating a price cut with the company, along with Novo Nordisk's newly forged alliances with three leading telehealth companies to drive self-pay sales of its weight loss drug.

CVS Health Corp.’s drug-benefits unit negotiated a deal to make Novo Nordisk A/S’s Wegovy more widely available to its members, a blow to rival Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zepbound that was moved off the company’s list of preferred drugs.

Wegovy and Zepbound are part of a wave of obesity medications known as GLP-1 receptor agonists that have soared in popularity due to the amount of weight people lose while taking the injections. Coverage of these drugs has been patchy due to in part to their cost and the wide swath of patients who could take them.