Walmart's Discount Insulin Could Attract Insured Customers

by Leslie Small

Walmart Inc. recently made one of its biggest moves yet in the health care space by partnering with Novo Nordisk to launch private-label insulin at a steeply discounted cash price.

The retail giant's ReliOn NovoLog Insulin will offer insulin vials for $72.88 and FlexPens for $85.88, representing a 58% to 75% savings compared with the cash price of branded analog insulin products.

Some patient advocates aren't impressed:

• "The announcement of Walmart selling Novolog insulin is not a solution to the insulin price crisis. It is not a replacement for real action, and adds another talking point for pharmaceutical companies’ supposed interest in patients' needs," the group T1International said in a statement. "The only solution is legislative action to truly hold the industry accountable and lower the list price."

Industry expert sees promise:

• Michael Abrams, a principal and co-founder at health care consulting firm Numerof & Associates, thinks Walmart's new offering will make a difference for people with diabetes — although he adds that "expectations do have to be realistic."
• Walmart's private-label insulin, Abrams says, is "a very high visibility example of [a] non-traditional provider that is forcing a correction in the market. And I do think that, by example, we may see others [do so] if there are similar opportunities like this one where there's a big audience and a big gap between the current price and what [a product] could be sold for."

Offering may appeal to the high-deductible set:

• Walmart's new private-label insulin is chiefly marketed toward individuals who opt to pay cash for insulin rather than use insurance. And insured patients who have met their health plan's annual deductible would likely get the lowest price by asking their prescriber for brand-name NovoLog "and then going to any in-network pharmacy to fill that prescription," says Elan Rubinstein, Pharm.D., principal at EB Rubinstein Associates.
• But uninsured patients — or insured ones who haven't met their annual deductible — "would likely achieve a lowest out-of-pocket cost by asking the prescriber to prescribe ReliOn NovoLog, and then going to Walmart or Sam's Club to fill the prescription," Rubinstein says.

From RADAR on Drug Benefits