Is Trulicity Being Discontinued? What Is Actually Happening in 2026

Short answer: no.

As of September 2026, Trulicity is actively marketed by Eli Lilly. Its listing in the FDA’s National Drug Code directory runs to December 31, 2027. There is no open FDA drug shortage record for dulaglutide. Lilly has not announced a discontinuation.

But the question is being asked constantly, and there are real reasons for that. Several things have genuinely happened to older GLP-1 drugs in the past two years, and they have blurred together into a general sense that the older medicines are disappearing. This article separates what is true from what is not.

None of this is medical advice. If you are worried about your supply, the conversation to have is with your prescriber and your pharmacy.

What is Trulicity, exactly?

Trulicity is dulaglutide, a once-weekly GLP-1 receptor agonist injection approved in the US on September 18, 2014 [1]. It is a biologic, approved under BLA 125469 rather than as a conventional small-molecule drug.

Its label covers two uses [1]:

• Improving blood sugar control in adults and children 10 and older with type 2 diabetes, alongside diet and exercise
• Reducing the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in adults with type 2 diabetes who have established cardiovascular disease or multiple cardiovascular risk factors

It is not approved for weight management in the US. That is Wegovy and Zepbound territory.

It comes as single-dose pens in four strengths — 0.75 mg, 1.5 mg, 3 mg and 4.5 mg per 0.5 mL. The label describes starting adults at 0.75 mg weekly, with increases possible after at least four weeks at each step, to a maximum recommended dosage of 4.5 mg once weekly; the pediatric maximum is 1.5 mg weekly [1]. That is a summary of the FDA-approved prescribing information and the Instructions for Use packaged with the pens, offered as background rather than directions. The schedule that applies to any individual is the one on their own prescription.

Like every GLP-1 in the class, it carries a boxed warning about the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors and is contraindicated in people with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma or MEN 2 [1].

So where did the discontinuation rumors come from?

Three sources, all real, none of which mean Trulicity is going away.

The exenatide brands actually were discontinued

This is the big one. AstraZeneca stopped marketing Byetta on October 25, 2024 and Bydureon BCise on October 28, 2024. On August 4, 2025 the FDA published a notice withdrawing approval of all three exenatide applications, effective September 3, 2025, at the applicants’ own request because the products were no longer marketed [2].

UnitedHealthcare sent a provider notice about the discontinuations in December 2024 that named Trulicity as one of the GLP-1s that remained preferred on its commercial plans [3]. Notices like that circulate, get screenshotted, and lose their context. A document about GLP-1 discontinuations that mentions Trulicity is easy to misread as a document about Trulicity being discontinued.

Medicare selected Trulicity for price negotiation

On January 27, 2026, CMS named Trulicity among the 15 drugs selected for the third cycle of the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program [4]. Manufacturers had until February 28, 2026 to decide, and on March 13, 2026 CMS confirmed that all 15, Lilly included, had chosen to participate [5].

Being “selected” sounds ominous if you do not follow drug pricing policy. It is not a withdrawal, a recall, or a restriction. It means CMS and Lilly negotiate a maximum fair price that Medicare Part D will pay, and that price takes effect January 1, 2028. Nothing changes in 2026 or 2027, and nothing changes at all for commercial insurance or cash-pay customers.

For scale, CMS said the 15 selected drugs are used by approximately 1.8 million beneficiaries and account for roughly $27 billion in Part B and Part D spending, about 6 percent of the total [4]. Trulicity is the second GLP-1 franchise selected, after Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide products for 2027, whose negotiated price came in at $274 per month for a 30-day supply, against a 2024 list price of $959 [5].

If anything, selection is a signal that a drug is still widely used — CMS picks high-spend drugs, not fading ones.

Older GLP-1s genuinely have been leaving

The pattern is real, which is why the rumor is plausible. Of the GLP-1 brands that existed in the US in 2018:

• Tanzeum (albiglutide) was withdrawn in 2018
• Adlyxin (lixisenatide) left the US market on January 1, 2023
• Byetta and Bydureon BCise were discontinued in October 2024, approvals withdrawn September 2025
• Saxenda is being discontinued, with last shipments to wholesalers in late January 2027
• Rybelsus as a US brand name was retired in 2026 when oral semaglutide moved under the Ozempic name

Trulicity is the last of the pre-semaglutide weekly GLP-1s still on the US market. That is a real distinction, and it is why people keep checking on it.

Is there a Trulicity shortage right now?

Not according to the FDA’s drug shortage database as of September 2026, which has no open record for dulaglutide.

Trulicity did go through supply problems earlier in the GLP-1 boom, which is a large part of why the question persists in search results; this lane has not verified those episodes against dated FDA shortage records, so no dates are claimed here. Supply status changes, so the FDA’s drug shortage database is the authoritative check rather than the date on any article, this one included.

Will there be a generic Trulicity?

Not in the way most people mean.

Dulaglutide is a biologic approved under a Biologics License Application. A copy would be a biosimilar, which is a longer and more expensive path than a conventional generic. No dulaglutide biosimilar is approved in the US as of September 2026.

Compare that with liraglutide, which was approved as a conventional drug and is now genericized many times over — nine or more manufacturers listed in the FDA directory, at roughly 64 percent below brand Victoza on a per-milliliter acquisition cost basis, $32.00 against $87.81 effective August 19, 2026 [6]. That is a path Trulicity does not have.

What does Trulicity cost in 2026?

Three numbers, all public and all measuring different things.

List price: $1,006.93 per month for a four-pen supply, published by Lilly, based on wholesale acquisition cost accessed January 1, 2026 [7]. Almost nobody pays this.

Pharmacy acquisition cost: about $975 per month. The National Average Drug Acquisition Cost for the 4.5 mg pen was $487.38 per milliliter effective August 19, 2026, and four pens hold 2 mL [6]. This is what pharmacies pay on average, before rebates.

What people actually pay: Lilly states that about 40 percent of commercially insured patients pay $0 per prescription and 90 percent pay under $75, and that its savings card can bring eligible commercially insured patients to as little as $25 for up to a three-month prescription [7][8]. Savings card eligibility typically excludes people with Medicare, Medicaid or other government coverage.

Has anything else changed about Trulicity recently?

Yes, on the label. Two new Warnings and Precautions were added in November 2024: severe gastrointestinal adverse reactions (section 5.6) and pulmonary aspiration during general anesthesia or deep sedation (section 5.9) [1].

That second one is worth knowing about if you have surgery or a procedure with sedation coming up. GLP-1 drugs slow stomach emptying, which means food can remain in the stomach longer than anesthesia teams expect. Section 5.9 of the label directs prescribers to consider that risk in patients scheduled for general anesthesia or deep sedation [1]. It does not tell patients to hold or stop the drug; published society guidance on perioperative GLP-1 management is still evolving and is addressed to the anesthesia team, which is why whether to interrupt therapy before a procedure is a decision that team makes with your prescriber.

What is the evidence behind Trulicity’s heart indication?

The REWIND trial, which is unusual in this class for two reasons.

It randomized 9,901 adults aged 50 and over with type 2 diabetes to dulaglutide 1.5 mg weekly or placebo and followed them for a median of 5.4 years — the longest GLP-1 cardiovascular outcomes trial to date. And only 31.5 percent of participants had established cardiovascular disease at baseline, so it was largely a primary-prevention population, unlike most trials in this class which enroll people who already had a heart attack [9].

Major adverse cardiovascular events occurred in 12.0 percent of the dulaglutide group versus 13.4 percent on placebo — a hazard ratio of 0.88, with a 95 percent confidence interval of 0.79 to 0.99 and a p value of 0.026. The benefit was driven mainly by fewer nonfatal strokes (hazard ratio 0.76) rather than fewer heart attacks (0.96) [9].

Gastrointestinal side effects were common: 47.4 percent in the dulaglutide group versus 34.1 percent on placebo [9].

That trial is why Trulicity has a place in treatment guidelines that its efficacy numbers alone would not justify, and it is one reason the drug has stayed on preferred formulary lists.

What does this mean if you are on Trulicity?

On the discontinuation question: nothing. It is on the market, and the FDA records checked on September 14, 2026 show no shortage and product listings running into 2027.

A few things are worth knowing regardless:

Know where to check. The FDA publishes drug shortage and discontinuation databases. Those are the authoritative sources, not social media.

Watch your plan’s formulary each January. Far more people lose access to a GLP-1 through a formulary change than through a discontinuation. Plan documents go out before the year starts.

Stretching or stockpiling doses is outside the label. The prescribing information describes one fixed weekly dose per titration step and a specific missed-dose rule; it contains no schedule for spacing doses out to make a supply last, so a plan of that kind has no labeled basis and is a question for a prescriber [1].

If a change ever does come, the cardiovascular indication is worth raising. If you are on Trulicity partly because of REWIND, that is a different conversation than switching for blood sugar alone. Not every GLP-1 carries the same indication, and the wording differs between labels.

Sources

1. TRULICITY (dulaglutide) injection — US prescribing information, US Food and Drug Administration
2. Withdrawal of Approval of 39 New Drug Applications, Federal Register, August 4, 2025
3. Discontinuation of Bydureon BCise and Byetta, UnitedHealthcare, December 19, 2024
4. CMS Announces Selection of Drugs for Third Cycle of Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, January 27, 2026
5. Selected Drugs and Negotiated Prices, and CMS Announces Manufacturer Participation in Third Cycle (March 13, 2026), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
6. NADAC (National Average Drug Acquisition Cost), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
7. How much should I expect to pay for Trulicity?, Eli Lilly and Company
8. Trulicity Savings Card, Cost and Resources, Eli Lilly and Company
9. Dulaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes (REWIND), The Lancet, 2019
10. Trulicity label, DailyMed, National Library of Medicine
11. Analyzing Drugs Selected For The 2028 Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Cycle, Health Affairs Forefront, 2026