Global drug major Eli Lilly has signed an agreement with Cipla allowing the Indian company to sell its popular weight-loss drug tirzepatide under a separate brand in the country, the two companies said on Thursday. Under the agreement, Lilly will manufacture and supply the drug to Cipla which will market it under the brand name Yurpeak.
Yurpeak will be available to Indian patients as a once-weekly pre-filled injector pen, same as Lilly’s Mounjaro Kwikpen, and at the same price. Each pen contains four fixed doses, and it will be available in six dose strengths, allowing healthcare professionals to personalise treatment plans to better suit individual patient needs.
The arrangement will allow broader access to the drug across the country beyond cities where Lilly already has an established presence. Lilly is already selling the drug in India under the Mounjaro brand name which was launched in March this year.
“With India facing a growing burden of type 2 diabetes and obesity, broader availability of tirzepatide will ensure that more patients can benefit from this innovative therapy. The introduction of a second brand of tirzepatide in India through our commercial agreement with Cipla furthers Lilly’s commitment to expanding access to innovative treatments for chronic conditions,” said Winselow Tucker, president and general manager at Lilly India.
Achin Gupta, global chief operating officer at Cipla, said that with the introduction of Yurpeak, the company is stepping into obesity care with the same scale that has defined its efforts in respiratory and chronic therapies. According to healthcare tech platform Pharmarack, the anti-diabetic therapy posted a 10% growth in September 2025, reflecting stable-yet-positive performance. “A key trend shaping this category is the evolving clinical focus towards prevention through weight management and metabolic control, rather than purely glycemic regulation.
This has led to an increased uptake of anti-obesity and GLP-1 receptor agonist therapies, with brands such as Mounjaro and Wegovy gaining strong traction,” it said. Tirzepatide is a prescription-based injection used to treat type 2 diabetes. It is used together with diet and exercise to help control the blood sugar, and for the chronic weight management in adults with obesity or overweight with at least one weight-related co-morbidity.
India has about 101 million people living with diabetes and nearly half of these in the adult patients category are being inadequately treated with suboptimal glycemic control. Obesity, a chronic relapsing disease, is a major risk factor for diabetes and linked to more than 200 health complications, including coronary heart disease, cancer, and obstructive sleep apnea. As of 2023, adult obesity prevalence in India stood at around 6.5%, affecting nearly 100 million people.