7m
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On Monday, diabetes drugmaker Eli Lilly said it plans tomake an "authorized generic" version
of its life-saving diabetes medication Humalog and sell it for half the price
of the branded version at $137.35 a vial.
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Humalog is a type of
short-acting insulin, which helps people with diabetes
process the sugar in their blood. Its list price has risen more than 1200%
since it was first approved in 1996 to $274.70 a vial.
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The lower price might still be
unaffordable for many diabetics who pay the full amount for the drug.
Laura Marston vividly
remembers what it's like to pay $140 for a vial of insulin.
In 2012, Marston lost
her job and found herself paying the full list price for Humalog, a life-saving
medication used by people with diabetes to help process sugar found in the
blood. At the time, Humalog cost about $140 a vial.
Marston is one of
the 1.25 million people in the US who have
Type 1 diabetes, and therefore need to inject insulin to live. Marston had to
pay the full list price for three Humalog vials a month, until the Affordable
Care Act helped her get insurance in 2014.
She recalls the
lengths she had to go to cover the roughly $420 a month she spent on insulin.
She had to cash out her 401(k), sold her car, took on debt, and borrowed from
her parents' retirement fund. Marston's now a 36-year-old video game attorney
and advocate, who's been using Humalog since she was diagnosed at age 14.
She likes to point
out that, at the time she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1996, Humalog
had a list price of $21 a vial.
Since then, the list
price of Humalog has climbed to $274.70 a vial, prompting public outcry and leading to
Congressional hearings and investigations.
In response, on
Monday, Eli Lilly, the company that makes Humalog, said it will make an "authorized generic" version of the
medication, and sell it for half the price of the branded drug. An authorized
generic is identical to the original drug, but it will have different packaging
or labeling.
The authorized
generic version of Humalog will cost $137.35 a vial, roughly what Marston was
paying in 2012.
To her, that price
tag is still unaffordable for people who are uninsured or have an insurance
plan that requires them to pay the full list price for insulin.
"I don't know
who this is directed to help," Marston told Business Insider.
People who do have
health insurance likely pay an amount that's less than the full list price of
Humalog. They may pay a fixed amount of money (called a copay) or a proportion of the retail cost of the drug
each time they go to the pharmacy. But the many Americans on high deductible
plans can be required to pay thousands of dollars for medical care and
prescriptions before their health insurance kicks in, potentially exposing them
to the high list prices of drugs like insulin.
Mike Mason, Lilly's
senior vice president of connected care and insulins, told Business Insider
that what he's seen is that about 95% of patients pay less than $100 a month
for insulin at the pharmacy counter, while about 5% are on the hook for more.
The vast majority of that 5% are on Medicare Part D plans, he said.
The goal of the
authorized generic is to offer those patients, as well as those who are
uninsured, a lower list price at the pharmacy counter.
When asked why Lilly
didn't simply cut the price of Humalog in half instead of introduce the
authorized generic, Mason said that would be a more challenging proposition
given how the healthcare system operates today.
"It would be
very disruptive for one company or the entire system to move to a different
model overnight," Mason said. "It's something that's going to have to
require an evolution to get there."
The price of the
authorized generic — at half the list price of branded Humalog — was a point of
consideration as well.
Mason said the price
had to balance getting more access to patients with fitting into the current
healthcare system, which led to the 50% price reduction. Mason said he does
anticipate the authorized generic having a negative impact on the company's
overall net revenue.
"We think it
provides significant savings for people living with diabetes while also
balancing the current system," Mason said.
Even so, Marston and
others are calling for an even lower price.
https://twitter.com/MelindaMWedding/status/1102575022495825920
Marston said she'd
rather see list prices go down to $30 a vial, which would put the cost in line
with what Humalog costs elsewhere around the world.
For instance, Humalog
vial in UK has a list price of roughly £16 a vial, and according to a
survey conducted by diabetes advocacy group T1International, the
average out-of-pocket cost of a 10 ml vial of Humalog is roughly $31 in Canada
and $20 in Japan.
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