Drug saves lives, but costs need to come down
Insulin issue is nuanced one, but balanced is needed between profit and cost
Ivividly remember the day my grandfather told me he had been diagnosed with diabetes. I was young – 6 or 7 – and I walked into his hospital room holding my uncle’s hand. Color was absent from the room – the bedding, the walls … even my grandfather was washed out and pale. The only vivid color in the room was a single bright orange on the nightstand.
I curled up on the hospital bed next to my grandfather, and he explained what was wrong.
His doctors had diagnosed him with diabetes, and that meant he would have to do some unusual stuff, like pricking his finger to test his blood sugar levels and administering shots of insulin to himself.
He didn’t want me to be scared when I saw the needles or the blood later on, and wanted to help me understand what was now happening to him.
Then, he reached for the orange and a syringe that was behind it, and showed me how the insulin injections would look. I even got to administer a “shot” on the test orange.
He was alive thanks to manufactured insulin. I didn’t realize as a child how miraculous that was, but today, I have a much greater appreciation for it.
Insulin as an injected treatment didn’t exist until January
1922, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and it was refined from the pancreases of cattle, and later pigs.
The first genetically engineered, synthetic “human” insulin was produced in 1978, the ADA reports.
In 1982, Eli Lilly started to sell the first commercially available biosynthetic human insulin, under the brand name Humulin … right about the time my grandfather was diagnosed with diabetes.
My grandfather was an engineer. He had a great job with health insurance, making him one of the fortunate ones who didn’t have to worry as much about the costs.
But others don’t have that luxury, and insulin manufacturers have been under fire for years over the costs of insulin.
According to the Associated Press, prices for insulin have more than tripled in the last two decades.
Humulin, Humalog (another insulin) and its authorized generic brought in a total of more than $3 billion in revenue for Lilly last year, AP reports – which is staggering.
But that also brings me to the good news portion of this column, sort of. This week, Eli Lilly announced it would cut the list prices for Humalog and Humulin by 70% or more in the fourth quarter.
According to the AP, that will drop the price of Humalog to $66.40, and Humulin to $44.61, and it will cap patient out-of-pocket costs at $35 a month.
However, there’s a wrinkle in this. According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, this only applies to people with private insurance. If you don’t have insurance, you’ll have to apply to the company’s co-pay program.
Hmm.
And Johns Hopkins brings up a little-discussed point.
“A century ago, the discoverers of insulin sold the patent for $1 each, with the intention of making this life-saving drug affordable to all.”
And yet, just one major insulin manufacturer made $3 billion last year on insulin. And, readers, Eli Lilly isn’t the only manufacturer out there.
I understand that companies need to make a profit to function, and evolutions in treatments don’t happen without funding to pay for the research.
However, something is clearly off here. There has to be a balance between corporate profit and public health, and at the moment, I don’t think we’re hitting that mark, especially when more than 8 million Americans need insulin to live.
It’s time insulin manufacturers did the right thing, and lowered those costs for everyone.