An operator works at an insulin vial factory belonging to pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly in Fegersheim, France, in 2015. FREDERICK FLORIN (AFP)
One of President Joe Biden’s great battles has won. American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly this Wednesday announced a 70 percent price cut for “the most commonly prescribed insulins” in the country, which millions of insulin-dependent citizens depend on. Biden fought during his two-year tenure to cap a treatment that amounts to several hundred on the open market to $35 a month, and now Eli Lilly has listened to him. The last time he publicly referred to the need for price regulation was during the State of the Union debate on February 8.
“Eli Lilly is taking this action to increase access to Lilly insulins and to help Americans who may be struggling to navigate a complex healthcare system. [mercado libre]which can prevent them from getting insulin at a reasonable price,” the Indianapolis-based drugmaker, which became the first company to commercialize insulin in the country in 1923, said in a statement.
The decision includes setting an automatic cap of $35 per month for those with private insurance, the cap that President Biden has called for, and less for those who do not have insurance, such as those who have insurance. B. Medicaid beneficiaries, the system for citizens without resources. The drugmaker will also lower the price of its branded insulin to $25 per vial starting May 1, making it the cheapest available. The current retail price is $82.41 per vial.
The high price of insulin in the US has been a war horse with campaigns like that of Senator Bernie Sanders, a representative of the most progressive wing of the Democrats. In 2019, the veteran Vermont senator organized several caravans to Canada, where the price of the input is significantly lower, to denounce the hormone’s prohibitive cost in his country. Biden has taken up the gauntlet of justification, with regular calls to limit a hormone that more than eight million Americans depend on every day, according to the US Diabetics Association.
According to a Yale University study published in July, spending on insulin accounts for more than 40% of after-living income, that is, what’s left after paying rent and food, for more than 14% of insulin-dependent people in the United States. A “catastrophic” amount, according to the above study, endangering the well-being of patients who, in many cases, have abandoned treatment due to the material impossibility of coping with them. The lifestyle, sedentary lifestyle and poor diet with an overweight of processed products have a major impact on the prevalence of the disease in the country with more than 30 million registered diabetics, although less than a third of the total depend on insulin daily.
Insulin prices have more than doubled on average over the past decade, with a few exceptions that have skyrocketed. When pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly released Humalog in 1996, the fast-acting drug most commonly used by insulin dependent people, it cost $21 a vial. “Today it costs more than ten times as much,” says the Yale study.