THANK JOE
Endocrine Society applauds Eli Lilly’s
efforts to lower insulin costs
Monthly price caps should be available to everyone who depends on insulin
Business AnnouncementThe Endocrine Society commends Eli Lilly and Company for taking steps to reduce insulin prices and make insulin affordable for more people with diabetes.
Eli Lilly's announcement to cut insulin prices by 70% and extend the $35 per month insulin cap to people with private insurance is a positive step towards making insulin affordable for the more than 7 million Americans that rely on the medication.
“Lilly’s move to apply a $35/month cap for people with private insurance will be a significant improvement for adults and children with diabetes who use Lilly’s products,” said Endocrine Society Chief Medical Officer Robert Lash, M.D. “We encourage all insulin manufacturers to join in the effort to reduce out-of-pocket costs for people who need insulin.”
The Endocrine Society has championed measures to improve insulin access for years. Last year, we were pleased that a $35/month cap on insulin for people with Medicare was included in the Inflation Reduction Act and implemented this January 1. The Endocrine Society continues to call on Congress to pass an insulin price cap for all people with private insurance.
More than 7 million people nationwide rely on insulin to manage their diabetes. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 37.3 million people nationwide—about 11 percent of Americans—have diabetes.
While insulin was discovered more than 100 years ago, the price of insulin nearly tripled between 2002 and 2013, and the trend upward has continued over the past decade. In 2021 alone, nearly one in five American adults with diabetes—about 1.3 million people—rationed their insulin to save money, according to a study.
The Society will continue to work to improve insulin access for all who need it.
“Our patients who rely on insulin have waited long enough. The time to act is now,” Lash added.
Endocrinologists are at the core of solving the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, and hormone-related cancers. The Endocrine Society is the world’s oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions.
The Society has more than 18,000 members, including scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 countries. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at @TheEndoSociety and @EndoMedia.
Analysis by Rachel Roubein
with research by McKenzie Beard
March 2, 2023
Eli Lilly announces it will cut insulin list prices. Novo Nordisk and Sanofi haven’t said they’ll do the same.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly announced it was slashing list prices of older insulin products and expanding its program capping how much patients pay for the lifesaving drug to $35 per month.
It didn’t take long for pressure to mount on the other two main insulin makers to follow suit.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), the chair of the chamber’s sweeping health panel, quickly sent letters to Sanofi and Novo Nordisk urging the manufacturers to join Eli Lilly in lowering costs. President Biden called on “other manufacturers to follow.” And Eli Lilly has said its competitors should reduce their prices as well.
Neither Sanofi nor Novo Nordisk indicated plans to immediately copy Eli Lilly’s move, while pointing to other programs they have in place that substantially decrease costs for many patients.
The public pressure yesterday is a prime example of the intense scrutiny the three companies have been under for years to clamp down on the soaring costs of their insulin products. The drug is used daily by roughly 7 million Americans with diabetes to manage their blood sugar levels, and the list prices of the medications have doubled — and in some cases tripled — over the past decade, bipartisan Senate investigators said in a 2021 report.
“I think you can safely say that, like many followed price increases, expect these guys to follow price decreases, too,” said one Democratic pharmaceutical lobbyist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
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The details
The move comes after congressional Democrats passed legislation last year imposing a $35 cap on how much Medicare patients pay for insulin. Republicans successfully jettisoned the part of the proposal that would have applied to privately insured patients, arguing it didn’t conform with certain budgetary rules.
Democratic lawmakers, advocates and experts welcomed Eli Lilly’s announcement, though it appears to be not as sweeping as originally meets the eye. Experts say it could particularly help uninsured patients who pay cash and those with private insurance who weren’t part of the company’s already existing program to cap monthly costs at $35 per month.
That program will be improved for patients with private insurance. That’s because the price will be automatically adjusted by pharmacies participating in the program, which amounts to roughly 85 percent of local and national retail pharmacies. Those without insurance will need to continue to download a savings card online so they can get the price cap.
The company also said it would reduce the list price of certain insulins.
For instance: Lilly’s most affordable insulin — its non-branded lispro injection — will run about $25 per vial starting May 1, compared with the current price of $82.41. The list price for Humalog, its most commonly prescribed insulin, and Humulin will drop 70 percent effective in the last three months of the year.
The company also plans to launch a new longer-acting insulin, which it says is interchangeable with a product from competitor Sanofi, but cheaper.
The money trail
One question is whether the change will impact the company’s bottom line.
Some experts said they thought it probably wouldn’t, at least not much, and pointed to the company’s stock price ticking up slightly yesterday.
“Lilly may actually not be losing much in the way of revenue by cutting the list price this way,” Stacie Dusetzina, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. It might be a small change in the amount of money they get for these products, but they could make up for it with additional volume, she said.
The fact that it might not hurt the company’s profits doesn’t mean the move is “a bad thing,” said Craig Garthwaite, a health economist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “We wanted list prices to go down, we have now gotten those prices to go down. That is a good thing.”
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