Pharmaceutical giant Elli Lilly finally caps insulin price at $35 amid public backlash

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly will slash the cost of its popular insulin products, easing some of the financial burden for millions of Americans with diabetes.

The company said Tuesday it will cut prices for its Humalog and Humulin injections, its two best-selling insulin products, by 70 percent in the fourth quarter.

And starting May 1, the company will reduce the list price of brand-name insulin from $82 per vial to $25 per vial, the lowest level of insulin diabetics take at mealtime and less than the price of a vial of Humalog in 1999.

Lilly will also limit the cost of insulin to $35 per month for diabetics with private insurance at certain pharmacies. The cost cap, which takes effect immediately, was previously only for people enrolled in Medicare, the government’s health care plan for seniors.

By imposing a cost cap, Eli Lilly is making insulin products, which can cost thousands of dollars a year to the uninsured, more affordable for the estimated 21 million Americans under age 65 with diabetes.

Humalog, Eli Lilly’s prefilled insulin pen, will also drop in price. The company also said it would lower the cost of its generic version of Humalog to $25 per vial, down from $82, a change that would bring the price down to less than it was in 1999.

The cost cap only applies to people with commercial insurance, but Lilly said uninsured people can continue to limit monthly costs to $35 for their insulin products by using a savings card that can be downloaded online.

Mr. David A. Ricks, CEO of Lilly, said: ‘While the current healthcare system provides access to insulin for most people with diabetes, it still does not provide affordable insulin for all and that must change.

‘The aggressive price cuts we are announcing today should make a real difference for Americans with diabetes. Because these price cuts will take time for the insurance and pharmacy system to implement, we are taking an extra step to immediately limit out-of-pocket costs for patients using Lilly insulin who are not covered by the recent cap on insulin Medicare Part D.

Most diabetics require two to three vials of insulin per month, although some will need more. With an average list price of around $100 per vial, the cost of controlling blood sugar could be prohibitive, forcing many people to turn to the black market or ration the crucial drug with disastrous consequences.

The United States is an outlier globally when it comes to money spent on the drug, which costs between $2.28 and $3.42 to produce. When Canadian scientist Frederick Banting discovered insulin in the 1920s, he opted not to put his name on the patent because he believed it was unethical for a doctor to profit from the life-saving drug.

James Collip and Charles Best, Dr. Banting’s co-inventors ended up selling the patent to the University of Toronto for just $1 in an effort to make insulin widely accessible.

But that only encouraged the pharmaceutical companies to demand more money for it. Major manufacturers have increased list prices by 600 percent in the last two decades.

The pharmaceutical giants that make insulin have filed patent after patent in the US to maintain their position in the market. There are very few insulin generics, although companies have made biosimilar insulins, which are very similar and have no clinically significant differences from the original biologic, in this case, human insulin.

Meanwhile, Americans traveling to Canada could get insulin for around $35 a vial. And growing numbers of desperate Americans are turning to our neighbors to the north, sometimes in busloads, to get it.

This is because, unlike in the US, the Canadian government has imposed price controls on the pharmaceutical industry.

However, the US government has recently taken steps to reduce the sky-high prices. The Inflation Reduction Act last year capped insulin prices for Medicare beneficiaries at $35 per month. The final product fell short according to Democrats who also wanted the cap to be extended to the private market.

President Joe Biden called on Congress to apply the cap to all Americans, which Republicans removed from the Cut Inflation Act in the final stages of deliberation.