Eli Lilly to offer half-price insulin

Drugmaker Eli Lilly will begin selling a cheaper version of its most popular insulin, Humalog, in an effort to head off criticism about the rising costs of prescription drugs, the company said Monday.

Lilly will begin selling an “authorized generic” of Humalog 100 for $137.35 per vial, half the list price. An authorized generic means that, except for the label, it is identical to the brandname drug and manufactured in the same facilities. The new product, which the company said would be made available as quickly as possible, will be called Insulin Lispro and will be sold through a Lilly subsidiary, ImClone Systems.

“There are clearly patients who, despite many best efforts, are struggling to afford their insulin,” David Ricks, chief executive of Lilly, said in an interview Friday. “This is a step we can take to close part of that remaining gap.”

The move offers a compromise to critics who have called on drugmakers to lower their list prices. Lilly will continue selling Humalog at its regular price to the insurers and employers who want to keep pocketing the large discounts, or rebates, they receive for purchasing brand-name drugs, while also making available a cheaper version to patients who pay for their insulin out of pocket.

As a result, people without health insurance should benefit most from the generic insulin, while those with drug coverage will either experience no change or see some decrease in their costs.

“This announcement is a great step forward to make insulin more affordable,” said Derek Rapp, chief executive of JDRF, formerly called the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a diabetes advocacy group that receives funding from Eli Lilly. He called on “all other insulin manufacturers to follow Eli Lilly in finding ways to bring down the price of this lifesaving drug.”

But others, such as Elizabeth Rowley, founder and director of T1International, a diabetes advocacy group that does not accept drug-industry funding, said Lilly and other companies could do more while still making a profit on their insulin products. “While half-price is certainly an improvement, it’s still an unaffordable price for so many,” she said.

Pharmaceutical companies have been under pressure to show they are doing something about the rising list prices of their products, which consumers have increasingly been exposed to as insurers scale back coverage. Multiple congressional inquiries have focused on insulin, and last week executives for seven major drugmakers testified on drug prices in a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. President Donald Trump has also made the issue a priority.

Over the years, industry intermediaries known as pharmacy benefit managers have negotiated ever-deeper discounts for insulin, yielding savings for the insurers and employers that pay the bulk of drug costs. Insulin manufacturers have responded by raising their list prices in an effort, they say, to please the benefit managers, who keep a percentage of the discounts they pass along.