GLP-1 Coverage: Why Employers Are Dropping Access, and What Comes Next w/ Jay Bregman

Losing access to a GLP-1 can happen even when treatment is working exactly as intended. A lower BMI, an insurance change, or an employer facing open-ended costs can suddenly turn a prescription into a maze of denials, prior authorizations, and unexpected expenses.

In this episode, Ana Reisdorf speaks with Jay Bregman, founder and CEO of Andel, about why traditional insurance struggles to cover high-demand medications and how direct-to-employer purchasing could offer another path. Jay explains how fixed employer contributions can make GLP-1 benefits more predictable, why he believes prior authorizations add unnecessary costs, and what patients can do when their coverage is at risk.

They also discuss Medicare access, losing coverage after successful weight loss, options for self-employed people, compounded medications, future GLP-1 competition, and whether access can become more equitable.

**IN THIS EPISODE**

- Why GLP-1 demand creates problems for traditional insurance
- How pharmaceutical middlemen affect medication pricing and access
- What direct-to-employer purchasing means
- Why employers hesitate to fund open-ended GLP-1 coverage
- How fixed employer contributions could make benefits more sustainable
- Why successful treatment and a lower BMI can lead to lost coverage
- The hidden administrative costs of prior authorizations
- What to do if you’re worried about affording your medication
- Options for self-employed people without employer assistance
- Jay’s perspective on Medicare, compounded medications, competition, and equitable access

**ABOUT THE GUEST**

Jay Bregman is the founder and CEO of Andel, a healthcare technology platform that enables high-cost medications like GLP-1s to be more accessible through employer benefits. With more than two decades of experience building and scaling companies, Jay brings a strong understanding of how policy, pricing, and market incentives intersect.

In developing Andel, he has focused on redesigning access pathways for high-demand, high-cost drugs that traditional coverage models fail to accommodate. His perspective on GLP-1 access and employer responsibility has been featured in Inc., STAT News, and Pharmaceutical Executive. He has also spoken at TEDx and Web Summit about business leadership.

Jay appears in this episode in his capacity as Andel’s founder and CEO. His comments about Andel and the pharmaceutical market reflect his experience and commercial perspective.

**CONNECT WITH JAY**

Andel:
https://www.andel.org/

Andel Raises $4.5M for Its Employer-Supported Medication Marketplace:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/andel-raises-4-5m-for-its-employer-supported-medication-marketplace-302588465.html

Andel Launches New Direct-to-Employer Medication Platform:
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/andel-launches-new-direct-to-employer-medication-platform-to-make-glp-1s-affordable-for-millions-302709372.html

**SPONSORS**

This episode includes sponsored messages from Johnson Fitness & Wellness and gutzy Organic.

Johnson Fitness & Wellness offers strength-training equipment, cardio machines, recovery products, and expert guidance for a range of fitness levels, spaces, and budgets. Visit https://www.johnsonfitness.com/ and use code GLP1Hub5 for an exclusive offer for GLP-1 Hub listeners.

gutzy Organic makes refrigerated fruit-and-vegetable pouches with prebiotic fiber for convenient, produce-based snacking.

Learn more at https://gutzyorganic.com/

**JOIN THE 21-DAY MEAL CONFIDENCE CHALLENGE**

Starting August 17, the GLP-1 Hub Membership’s 21-Day Meal Confidence Challenge will teach you a simple framework for making food decisions at restaurants, parties, potlucks, vacations, and in everyday life.

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**CHAPTERS**

00:00 When successful treatment costs you coverage
00:21 Why GLP-1 access is getting harder
01:45 Meet Jay Bregman
02:16 How direct-to-employer purchasing works
03:05 Why medication pricing is so complicated
07:24 Why health plans are dropping GLP-1 coverage
08:59 Why employers hesitate to pay long term
09:48 Fixed employer contributions explained
10:46 Long-term health versus short-term employment
12:47 Sponsor: Johnson Fitness & Wellness
14:06 Medicare access and coverage uncertainty
16:03 Losing coverage after lowering your BMI
16:54 The hidden cost of prior authorizations
18:28 What to do if you’re worried about losing access
20:07 Options for self-employed patients
20:12 Competition and the future of GLP-1 pricing
23:13 Can GLP-1 access become more equitable?
24:27 Sponsor: gutzy Organic
25:05 The future of compounded GLP-1s
28:11 Where GLP-1 access could be in five years
29:10 Connect with Andel
30:13 The 21-Day Meal Confidence Challenge

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*The content of this show is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The goal of this show is to provide various points of view about GLP-1 Medications. The personal and professional opinion of the guests and their content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Ana Reisdorf or GLP-1 Hub.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's worse. We we've heard of situations where somebody has taken the medication, they've they've really done well, they've done everything that their doctor asked them to do, they've lost a ton of weight, they've gotten below the BMI threshold of the medication, and then been told by the insurance company that because they did so well, congratulations. Now you don't qualify for the medication anymore under the FDA guidelines, so we're not giving it to you. I mean, it's absolutely nuts.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

If you've ever received one letter saying your GLP1 was approved, and then two more saying it was denied on the very same day, you already know how confusing medication access can be. And as more health plans limit weight loss coverage, the question is no longer only whether these medications work, it's whether people can afford to stay on them. I'm Anna Reisdorf, registered dietitian and GLP1 user. And today I'm joined by Jay Bregman, founder and CEO of Andle, a direct-to-employer service for high-cost brand name medications, including GLP1s. What we're going to unpack is why traditional insurance struggles with the demand of GLP1, why employers may hesitate to cover long-term treatment, and the surprising costs of all of those prior authorizations and denial letters. Jay will also explain how direct to employer purchasing works, how fixed employer contribution can make coverage more sustainable, and what people can do if they are worried about losing their access. We also discuss Medicare coverage, compounded medications, future competitions, and whether GLP1 access can become more equitable. This conversation is going to pull back the curtain on the forces shaping what you pay and whether you can keep getting the medication your provider prescribed. Now let's get on to the episode. Welcome to the GLP One Hub Podcast. I want to welcome Jay Bregman today. He is the CEO of Andel. We are going to talk today about cost. So, Jay, could you introduce yourself and tell the people what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

First of all, it's a really a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation. My name is Jay Bregman. I'm the founder and CEO of Andel. We're a direct-to-employer service for high spend brand drugs like GLP1s.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Okay. So what does direct-to-employer mean exactly? For those of still insurance talks.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Direct to employer means that we find ways to put pharmaceutical companies directly in touch with employers, health plans, and other organizations, unions, et cetera, in order to facilitate the streamlined and efficient purchase of drugs at direct prices as opposed to prices that might have to go through several intermediaries. We also, in our marketplace, we don't have any prior authorizations, we don't have any uh formularies, we don't have any utilization management, there's no rebates. And so this is really a different kind of universe for both employers and manufacturers to tap into to transact with each other through our platform.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Okay, so how does it work now if it's something not direct to employer? Like where does that what is the probably convoluted process?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So I I would, I mean, I that I would need a chart that was so complicated, it would probably blow your mind. I don't know if it fit on the screen in in front of me, but no, look, I mean, there are a ton of different intermediaries that process drugs. There's the wholesalers that buy them, you know, there's the GPOs, uh, there's the the PBMs, there's the pharmacies, there's the insurance companies, some of which are owned by each other. And there's just no real uh clarity or transparency or accountability in the system. So you know, I started Endel because I actually watched the Bernie Sanders insulin hearings several years ago. And I just couldn't, I couldn't imagine how they brought in all of the CEOs of the pharma companies and of the PBMs. And everybody was blaming everybody else. And I thought, you know, in a trillion dollar market, how can things in America be arranged this way? There's got to be a business opportunity here. I and it sure enough, it was much worse than I had imagined. And so I that's really what we're we're trying to fix. And we're really, just really extremely happy to have so many pharma companies and so many employers and brokers and others already working with us on this endeavor.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Awesome. So you're trying to reduce the cost, but you also said in in the initial email you had sent that you think that as more drugs come on the market, they're gonna get harder to access and maybe even more expensive. I thought that the more there were, the cheaper they would get. But you kind of have a different point of view here.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Well, I mean access. If you look at the world, right, and the the the world of drugs, uh it's gotten more and more expensive over the past 10 or 20 years to get a drug to market. There's a lot of regulatory costs, a lot of trials that have to be done, et cetera. That cost is not going down. But actually the net cost that and that net cost increase that manufacturers are receiving are going down. So actually, think about that for a second. And yet drug costs are still so high. So that really shows why we're at a breaking point in America. It's not working for pharma, it's not working for employers, it's not working for members, it's not working for anybody except, you know, the people who obviously I haven't mentioned. So I, you know, I think that that really that's the main problem here. It's a fundamental issue with the way in which drugs are distributed and priced in America, particularly high-cost drugs. And this problem is only being exacerbated by new drugs coming to market because we have more drugs than ever before that are solving problems that used to be solved through medical, but but now are easily solved through uh through drugs. But there just there isn't, there aren't enough payers and there's not enough dollars to be able to pay for them. So that's again, you know, and what why the system I think is uh is experiencing these issues. And with everything that's going on in AI and you know, that being integrated into producing even more medications than ever before, I think we're we're going into a golden age of pharma in a sense, but with nobody to pay for them. Uh so that's the issue. And again, that's the problem that we're trying to solve to really make the market efficient again.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Right. So I heard that this new drug, Redatrutide, which everybody is hot for, uh, Eli Lilly's trying to classify it as possibly a biologic and it's gonna be $7,000 a month. Have you heard this this year say?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I don't know that it's gonna be that expensive. I don't know that anybody has talked about the costs of it yet. There are biologics that that are that expensive for sure, uh, but usually they treat much more niche uh, you know, diseases. So I I'm you know, I I'm not sure that it's gonna be $7,000 a month. I think it will be priced efficiently according to the market as it is. The great news about Eli Lilly, though, and I have to say we we are a participant, a very proud participant in Eli Lilly's Employer Connect program, which allows us to sell Lilly products directly to employers, is that's gonna be factored into their pricing. So one of the things that we hope for Andle is that over time, you know, as new drugs come to market, they will be priced based on the fact that there are these new channels to reach employers directly. And even, even in the future, they will there will be drugs that never would have been created that will be created today and in the future because of companies like ours.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Right. Yeah, so they can get their product more effectively to the user. Yeah, sounds awesome. So a lot of people have been losing access to their medication. Suddenly insurances are dropping it. And why is that happening all of a sudden? It just seems like I know that January a bunch of insurance providers in the Northeast just dropped weight loss medication completely.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I think people have this view, unfortunately, that health insurance is some kind of bottomless pit, right? Like that it can pay for anything, et cetera. But in reality, it's a very simple, you know, I spent 10 years in insurance. I built a small business insurance company and sold it to one of the biggest and best insurance companies in the world. You know, but basically, you know, insurance is pretty simple, right? The premiums have to make up for the claims. And in this case, what's happening is, you know, let me just put it, give you an example, right? Nobody wants to break their leg, but a lot of people want Ozempic. That's the biggest problem. Insurance is really great at insuring against breaking your leg. Why? Because people aren't running out to do it, right? But when it comes to things like uh, you know, Ozimpic and Magobi and everybody else, everything else, actually there is a massive desire for people to go and get the medication, and that's simply not factored into the premium. So, and if it was factored into the premium, the premiums would be so expensive that people would the the you know, the healthy people would leave the uh the insurance pools. So it's it's basically there are some products I think that are just not a great fit for insurance, which is totally fine. People should be have the ability to pay for these products themselves, and their employers should have the ability to support them in doing so. It's just insurance is the wrong model.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Okay. So but why is it maybe that employers hesitate to pay for some of these medications? Is it the cost or do they not see like the long-term RO? I think it's a number of things.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

I mean, I think one of them is that when you when you provide a product to your population, your membership on an insurance platform, you gotta pay the claims that come in. There's a lot of regulations around it. Any claim that pays in, you gotta pay it, you gotta pay almost the entire cost. If the company pays the entire cost themselves. Well, that becomes unaffordable really quickly if 10, 20, 30 percent of your population want something that costs, you know, you $600, $700 uh, you know, per month.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Right. Right. That ends up being like completely not affordable for the insurance company. So does this program with getting it, the medication direct to the employer, does that reduce the costs for the employer?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Absolutely. I mean, it puts the employers in control of the cost. That's really what they've been missing. Right now, employers cannot choose the costs that they offer beyond a certain very narrow range that is set by their rebate contracts. With with uh you know, services like Andle and other direct-to-employer services, the employer can actually choose a fixed contribution. So they can say, yes, I want to contribute $200 per month to every eligible employee for GLP1s for weight loss. And I know that I can afford that. The employee or the member is gonna have to pay an out-of-pocket that basically is the rest of it, but they're still gonna be getting a benefit that makes it cheaper than buying it anywhere else in the country, right? Including any of the manufacturer sites, depending on how much they contribute. But basically, I think that's the evolution of this, putting the employer back in control of what they actually are contributing so that they can offer in the future every drug and not just have these formularies that restrict which drugs are offered and which ones are not.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Sure. Do you think that if there was more data about maybe like long-term benefits of being on this medication, that they would also be more likely to want to pay for it?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Well, sadly, as Americans, maybe not sadly, but as Americans, right, the the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the average tenure for an American employee is roughly 4.1 years. So that means that any sensible employer or fully funded insurer is going to be looking at you and saying, okay, well, you're going to be here for 4.1 years on average. And so that's how I'm going to make my decisions about your life and care. So the fact that it might cause long-term benefits is super great. But from an actuarial perspective, when it comes to insurance, it's just out of the bounds, right? It really doesn't, it doesn't factor in, unfortunately. Somebody else accrues the benefit, not you. And therefore, why pay for it? And that's unfortunately the problem we have. That's, I think, a more systemic problem with America and American, you know, drug purchasing, is that basically we have the short-term mentality. Now, the difference is when people put their own money into these products, they see the long-term effects because I care and you care about the long-term effects of these medications on our bodies. So we're willing to pay now more than ever for these drugs that we think will make us healthier, make us happier.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Right, right. So they they look at it as more the short short term. I went to this conference about food as medicine, and there was a lot of insurance payers there, and they were talking about, well, we could pay for healthy food for the people, but like we are gonna lose this employee at some point. And so like we're investing in their health when they're 80, like not when they're working for us now. So it's like kind of a push and pull, which I th I found interesting and interesting that they were even considering paying for food at all.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

I mean, you know, I think Vita just did a partnership with Instacart, which I thought was super interesting, right? To try and get people the right food that their coaches would recommend. Uh so I think that there's a lot to that.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

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SPEAKER_00 14:26

No. What I think that it will do is I think it will create a massive problem for the next administration because the cost of maintaining this, there's no way it's going to be cost neutral, right? So the cost of maintaining this is going to be astronomical. And, you know, for a while, that's okay. We can afford that. But as as times get tough, I think it will be on the next administration to say, is this something that we can keep subsidizing, you know, day in, day out, month in, month out? So, you know, and by the way, I I just generally I have a pretty dim view of uh, you know, kind of single payer systems and you know and in government-controlled uh you know environments. I think this should be a market uh price and market decision. But I I I I understand for the people that that currently are on Medicare, it's a massive benefit. Um, and I think it's great that we're getting the medication to them.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Right. Can and then it's supposed to expire in 18 months. Do you know anything about a plan to continue it?

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Well, there's a lot of things that were so I I don't know anything about a plan to continue it, but but all I know is it's pretty hard to take something like that away from a massive senior population that votes religiously in in elections and remembers when things like that are taken away. So I think that would be quite a challenge, you know, down the road.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Right. Right. Yeah. That that's what their big concern is, because right now they're having to like jump through all these hoops to get approved, you know, because it's like government, this, that, and the other. And then they're worried, like, okay, well, then after 18 months, then what? You know, have you seen that companies will like not even just Medicare, but they'll drop the coverage once the person reaches a certain body mass index or a certain goal or that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Oh, yeah. I mean, we've heard of that. I mean, it's kind of paradoxical. Isn't it? I mean, it's worse. We've heard of situations where somebody has taken the medication, they've they've really done well, they've they basically they've they've done everything that their doctor asked them to do. They've lost a ton of weight, they've gotten below the BMI threshold of the medication, and then been told by the insurance company that because they got because they did so well, congratulations. But now you don't qualify for the medication anymore under the FDA guidelines, we're not giving it to you. I mean, it's absolutely nuts what's been going on in the market.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Right. You know, for for me personally, I wanted to be on a lower dose and the insurance company would only cover like five, 10, or 15 milligrams, they wouldn't cover any half doses. You know, so that was like a constant fight. And then I would get like a letter in the mail that said, you're approved, and then two letters that said you're denied the same day.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Well, you know, I I think that what people really don't realize is all of this back and forth, all of this prior authorization and utilization management, this has a massive cost to the system. It has a cost to providers, it has a cost to you for all your wasted time dealing with all of this stuff. It has a cost to the pharma manufacturers because their drugs don't get in front of patients and the patients don't get on therapy quickly. And it has a cost to the employers because a lot of people don't know this, but the employers pay up to $75 for prior authorization. So they're actually paying for that letter. Believe it or not, it's a good thing. Yeah, I know, exactly. So so I, you know, we we believe in a world where I mean a lot of people try and optimize those and they're they're building AI to optimize those things. I think that that is kind of fool's errand, right? You just gotta get rid of them entirely. They don't provide any medical value. We got to get back to this idea in America that providers know what they're doing when they write a prescription, that they're doing it with care, that they're a licensed physician, and that they know basically what to do. And no, and the insurance company is not gonna be a better judge of whether that's actually the correct medication or not. And if we got rid of all of that, there would be a lot more money to to give back to basically both the the to basically to individuals to enjoy lower at lower cost drugs.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Right. It feels like such a waste. I mean, each letter had like 10 pieces of paper, you know, and it's like, why am I receiving three letters that say the same thing? Like somebody had to put that together. Like all that costs money. It's just to tell me a confusing message.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yes. So what would you suggest somebody do today if they're worried they're on the medication right now, but they're worried they're not going to be able to afford it long term? Is there any resources, anything that they should try to talk to their doctor or employer about?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Well, so certainly. I think there's a there's a number of things. One is so I think they should absolutely speak to their provider, but but also I think they should really investigate uh sites like Andle, whether we're yet teamed up with your employer or not. If you are employed, there is a facility on our site where you can actually write and basically contact your employer, and we will contact them on your behalf to be able to inform them about the program. So they might want to contribute. We get letters every day about this. So I think there are alternatives out there. I think what what it can be quite daunting, though, because people, there's so much noise in the system. And I think really just people have to kind of look and talk to their employer about this and just see what is actually available. And then also the manufacturers. I think the manufacturers have done a great job, have actually really upping their game with regard to the all of the data, all of the options that they have on their sites, be it Lily, Novo, and others. I think people should really spend some time on those sites that have really, I think, the best or some of the best content out there.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Right, right. So will you work with companies of all sizes, or does it have to be a certain size company?

SPEAKER_00 19:49

No, we'll work with companies of all sizes. You know, we we we generally work with self-funded employers, but we we have been known to make exceptions. So we're very happy to speak to anybody and we're where we for some reason might not be able to help, but we can refer you to somebody who we think will. So we have that that philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

What about those of us who are self-employed and have to pay our own our own way?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, no, absolutely. Look, I I I I've been there before. So believe me. Well, look, I I I think from that perspective, it's really about trying to make the most of the manufacturer deals that are out there. You know, if it were me, I would be looking hard and talking to my provider about, you know, which of the drugs are appropriate, which are the ones I could afford, and making an informed decision about what to do. Also, I mean, I think the direction of travel of costs and of cost of these drugs is going down. It's not going down that rapidly, but but it is going down. I think, you know, next year uh you should see more competition. Berenger has a new drug in development called servo that has some really, I'm not a clinician, but uh, so I don't take this as advice, but has some really excellent data, particularly around preserving muscle mass that I think people should take a look at once that drug and if it if it is approved on the market. And there should be several others rolling out over the next couple of years. The way that I think about this is, you know, I think the market may evolve to be more like what the iPhone used to be, where you got one, if not every year, every two years, you always got the new one, the new one, new one, because something new came out and it was better for you. And I think that's probably what we're likely to see, not just with GLP1s, but with many other classes of medication, as the pharma companies start to leverage AI and you really use to deploy newer, newer and newer tailored, personalized type medicines. I think it's possible that you might change a couple of times over your lifetime because new stuff comes out. And that's that's perfectly fine. I think that's really great.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Interesting. Yeah, I've I've I've keep up a little bit with the new development and I've I've heard a patch maybe moving forward and other things like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

So I I think that's very early stage. I read about that too. It's very interesting. I think for some people. People that don't like pills or or needles, that might be be something they could do. I I think though, you know, a it's been interesting. I think people had probably thought that that uh needles would be and injections would be more of an issue than they are. I think they haven't proven to be that much of an issue, but there's still a place for orals and there's still a place for other types of formulations that will come out in the future because the market is just so big and you you need to get something that not just works for most of the people, but works for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Right. And there's also a small percentage of people who are who don't respond to the medication. For sure. And so I think that some there's probably a genetic component, microbiome, something. Um, and so those people also need to be, I think, evaluated and see like what could work for them.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

It's like and again, it's yeah, I think it it's all about, you know, I think providers are getting very, very, no matter who they are, just primary care providers. They don't have to be specialists necessarily. Every provider, I think, in America is really getting highly educated on these drugs by the nature of the demand from their, you know, from their population, from their patient population. So I I think there is a lot, a lot to to basically learn from speaking to your provider about their experiences and their advice.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Right. Right now it kind of feels a little bit like higher socioeconomic people are sort of able to afford it. I know that in my neighborhood, every person is on it because they do not care about the cost. You know, every beauty salon here in town offers it, compound versions of it, that kind of thing. So do you see it moving more towards a little bit more equitable? Because I feel like a lot of people can't afford it and could really use it, whereas, you know, the people of my neighborhood questionably need it.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Look, I I mean, it it it has to in the sense that there just aren't that many people. I mean, people people have this perception in America that everybody is rich and everybody's beautiful, but actually it's just not true. Right. The mainstay of the population is, you know, is working class, and that's perfectly fine. You know, and so basically, how do we get the drugs to everybody, including the people, by the way, that might need them the most, but actually just not have the highest incomes. So that's why we're working with employers, because we think that that's a real fair way to equalize the system, which is if your employer is kicking in, you know, a contribution to the drugs, then that is more likely to be able to trickle down to people that basically are of many different types of backgrounds and incomes.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

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SPEAKER_00 25:28

So look, I I think compounding is really just awful. I mean, I, you know, well, the reason why is look, I'm the son of a heart surgeon, my mom is a CRNA, I came from a medical family. If you told me that that basically this completely unregulated, you know, API imported from China, bootleg stuff, right, was going to be injected into me. Or I mean, I it just the idea of it is really just make makes me nauseous. I think it is a ticking time bomb. I mean, just put it this way, from an insurance perspective, again, I'm gonna spend time in insurance. All of the the uh pharmacies that I've seen that actually make this stuff can't get products liability insurance. So what that means is, you know, Lily and Novo obviously have gazillions of dollars of product liability insurance. If somebody gets hurt with their product, you have recourse, you know, against the company. They've got nothing. So basically they're just gonna close up shop the minute that somebody gets hurt. And that's, you know, and then everybody else is really in trouble. So I think it's a ticking time bomb. I think it's great for the FDA to be cracking down on it. And I just don't see a place for it in the modern world. I think it never should have been able to happen in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

So do you think that they'll be successful? Because I feel like this compound is gone, compound is here, has been going on for like two years.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah, so look, I I think that I think it's it's sort of like the women's of justice, you know, they they they turn slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. Well, like they'll get you in the end, right? So and I think they're they're going in that direction. It's becoming much more difficult, but it is a process to be able to do that. But I also think there's something else which is happening, which is, you know, the the branded drugs and the branded drug makers are trying to make it easier and cheaper and more available. And therefore, you know, if if the gap between buying a lily trisepatide vial from LilyDirect versus buying something off the street or in your in some kind of salon is only, you know, 20 or 50 bucks, then you know, why would you take that risk with your life? Or at least most people Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Right. Yeah. The I I mean, the prices have really gone down. Like when I first started, they want to charge me $1,500, you know, and now you can get it from Lily Direct for three to $500. You know, that's a significant drop.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I think that what you're seeing with GLP1s, which is so exciting, is it's closer to a market price than we've ever seen in pharma before with anything. And so what what I think the lesson there is not just about GLP ones. The lesson there is, well, wait a minute, what about if there was a market price for every other drug that was out there that was kind of not you know trivially trivial priced? Wouldn't that also be great? Uh you know, if we could see the prices, we could know exactly what they were, we could purchase them easily, we could get our employer to contribute to them. I mean, that's a much better world.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So where do you see access being in five years with these GLP1 medications?

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Well, I mean, I I think in five years, you're gonna see really a very significant percent percentage of the US population, 50, 60 percent. And the reason I go even above what is currently indicated, the studies they're doing on substance abuse disorder, the studies that they're doing on sleep have done on sleep apnea, the new indications that are coming out of this probably will make it even bigger than obesity in the end. And so that's why I believe that this could be a really kind of miracle pathway. I mean, something that really is a a large percentage of the population that is addressing a wide array of different types of indications and different types of problems.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Yeah, it's it's it's crazy to think that that could be the case, like because there are so many new things coming out about it and it addresses a lot of concerns. So, where can people connect with your service and maybe help bring to bring it to the employer? And what does the process look like there?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Yeah, absolutely. So you can go to andel.org right now. And if you go to andel.org, you can see details. There's pages for various different uh kind of types of businesses that we deal with. There's a contact form on there. I read every single one that if you're an employer listening to this and you just want to get some more information about it, I'd I'd love to speak to you. Uh there's some videos on there that give an explanation of the service. I am the star. That's because we couldn't afford anybody else. So so anyway, I I think there's there's quite a lot on there. And, you know, frankly, anybody can really just get in touch with me directly as well. That I'm just J at endl.org. Uh if you want to talk.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This is really, really great. I think it's we need more people like you trying to improve the access to these medications because everybody wants them. And, you know, we don't want them going to people's garages to access them.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Absolutely. Well, I really appreciate the work you're doing. It's it was so nice to be on. Thank you very much. I'd love to talk to you again.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Sure, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the GLP One Hub podcast. I hope you learned what a complicated, complicated world it is out there. You probably already know. And I want to remind you that starting next week, August 17th, we are starting our 21-day meal confidence challenge over in the GLP One Hub membership, where we will teach you a framework to help make the decision of what to eat effortless and easy, no matter where you find yourself on a cruise, at a restaurant, at a birthday party, at a potluck, you are gonna know exactly what you eat. So you're never wondering, am I doing this right ever again? You can join for just five dollars. You can get that at glp onehub.com backslash challenge. That's glp onehub.com backslash challenge, or find it in the show notes. And I'll see you in the next episode.