Obese office staff will be able to receive weight-loss jabs on their work medical insurance for the first time.
The private health insurer Vitality, which covers 1.9 million people in the UK, has announced it will start offering the drugs Wegovy and Mounjaro to its members. The treatments are not presently covered by insurers and are available only at specialist NHS clinics or private pharmacies, costing about £200 for a month’s supply.
From this spring, adults with Vitality health insurance and a body mass index (BMI) over 35 — meaning they are severely obese — will be eligible to start on the drugs. They will still have to pay a fee, but it will be discounted from the market price, and one-to-one support and diet advice will be given free.
Vitality’s move could pave the way for other insurers to provide weight-loss drugs as part of workplace schemes, making them easier to get and more affordable. Eight million people in the UK are covered by private health insurance.
Dr Katie Tryon, the chief commercial director at Vitality, said that the move could improve productivity, saving businesses money in the long run, and boost the economy.
She added that the “amazing results” of the jabs showed they could reduce the proportion of the workforce suffering obesity-related illnesses such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, which could lead to more sick days.
“Over the last ten years, we have seen obesity increasingly becoming an issue within the working environment. For businesses, obesity has a huge impact on productivity, as well as recruitment and retention of staff,” Tryon said.
“Over the past year, the potential of weight-management medications has become more evident and while they are not a universal solution, they can be a useful tool in improving health. We are proud to be the first UK insurer to be offering this as part of our health insurance.”
About 15 million adults in the UK have a body mass index over 30, the threshold for obesity, which makes them eligible for weight-loss injections privately. The NHS is offering Wegovy to about 35,000 patients at specialist clinics, and it will start rolling out Mounjaro this year. However, more than 500,000 people are buying the drugs, allowing online pharmacies to cash in on the slow NHS rollout.
Two weekly weight-loss injections are currently available in the UK: Wegovy, the brand name for semaglutide, which is sold as Ozempic; and Mounjaro, the brand name for tirzepatide.
The cost varies according to dose, but is typically £150-£250 for an injection pen containing four doses on the private market.
Vitality said that its patients would get a discount of up to 20 per cent on each pen, as well as free one-to-one support via its weight-loss coaching partner Second Nature, to help obese patients overhaul their lifestyles while on the medication.
Tryon said that it was vital patients were given wraparound support while taking the powerful injections, to help manage side-effects and ensure the weight stays off long-term.
“Weight-loss medication is available online, relatively freely now. It really concerns me that people are taking these medications without support programmes,” she said.
“We need to focus on how you get healthy behaviour change in partnership with these new medications, as opposed to just the new medications on their own.
“Having that advice so you can sustainably change those behaviours is absolutely critical, to be able to maintain weight loss in the long term.”
Trials show patients on Mounjaro lose 20 per cent of their body weight on average after 72 weeks, whereas those on Wegovy or Ozempic lose 14 per cent. But once stopping the drugs, weight tends to come back on.
The boom in weight-loss medications being bought online has led to concerns from regulators. Last week the General Pharmaceutical Council announced more stringent checks for weight-loss jabs as part of a shake-up of pharmacy rules.
Online pharmacies were told they must verify the person’s body mass index (BMI) via a video consultation, in person, or through accessing GP or medical records.
It will no longer be enough to prescribe the drugs following an email chat, from questionnaires or by people sending in photos of themselves.
