Obese Brits will soon be able to access fat-busting jabs on their work medical insurance, for as little as £120 a month.
The injections, which are administered weekly, are designed to help type 2 diabetes patients control their blood sugar levels or for obese people to lose weight for health purposes.
Until now, the drugs have only been available from specialist NHS clinics or private pharmacies, costing around £150 to £200 for one month’s supply.
But from this Spring, those registered with private health insurer Vitality may start on Mounjaro and Wegovy.
Only Brits with a body mass index (BMI) over 35 — meaning they are severely obese — will be eligible.
Patients will receive a discount of up to 20 per cent on each injection pen, as well as one-to-one support and free diet advice.
It is believed the move could also pave the way for other health insurers — covering around eight million Brits — to provide weight-loss drugs as part of workplace schemes.
Dr Katie Tryon, Vitality’s chief commercial director, also insisted the jabs would improve productivity, help ease demands on the NHS and boost the economy.
Until now, the drugs have only been available from specialist NHS clinics or private pharmacies, costing around £150 to £200 for one month’s supply
She said: ‘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.
‘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.’
Under the Vitality workplace scheme, those eligible would get a discount of up to 20 per cent on each pen.
The cost varies according to dose, but typically stands around £150-£250 for a month’s supply at private pharmacies.
Its weight-loss coaching partner Second Nature will also help obese patients overhaul their lifestyles while on the medication, Vitality said.
‘Weight-loss medication is available online, relatively freely now. It really concerns me that people are taking these medications without support programmes,’ Ms Tryon added.
‘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.’
Under NHS guidelines, only patients who have a body mass index (BMI) of over 35 and at least one weight-related health problem like high blood pressure, or those who have a BMI of 30 to 34.9 and meet the criteria for referral to a specialist weight management service, should be prescribed Wegovy.
The health service currently prescribes Wegovy to around 35,000 patients at specialist clinics, and it will start rolling out Mounjaro this year.
UK law forbids the sale of such drugs without a prescription from a medical professional.
Like any medication, the jabs are known to cause side effects that vary in both frequency and severity.
Reported problems include constipation, fatigue, stomach pain, headaches and dizziness.
In January, a Mail on Sunday investigation also revealed almost 400 Brits had been hospitalised — some with life-threatening complications — since the rollout of jabs such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Saxenda.
Most of the reactions were gastrointestinal issues such as persistent nausea and diarrhoea, which leave some patients with ‘severe dehydration’.
But some doctors warned they were seeing patients with ‘serious, life-threatening complications’ including seizures, bowel obstruction and inflammation of the pancreas, known as pancreatitis.
In December, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) issued a warning to advertisers, businesses and influencers to remove online and social media ads for weight-loss prescription-only medicines targeted at members of the public.
This followed a MailOnline investigation that found social media influencers were being encouraged to illegally promote prescription weight-loss jabs to their thousands of followers.
Obesity itself increases the chances of person suffering serious health conditions that can damage the heart, such as high blood pressure, as well as cancers.
Around two in three adults in the UK are obese or overweight, giving the country one of the highest obesity rates in Europe.
Last year, a sobering report also suggested Britain’s spiraling obesity levels have fuelled a staggering 39 per cent rise in type 2 diabetes among people under 40, with 168,000 Brits now living with the illness.
Piling on the pounds has also been linked to at least 13 types of cancer and is the second biggest cause of the disease in the UK, according to Cancer Research UK.
