Silver Spring, MD – Attention has been brought to Eli Lilly and Co. with regards to “fake news,” in the form of a phony tweet of free insulin from the drugmaker, on Twitter, that caused a dip in Lilly’s stock back in November, and the more recent real announcement by the major drug company that it is placing a $35/mo. cap on out-of-pocket expenses and reducing the cost of its insulin products by 70%, including its top-selling Humalog and Humulin. The National Medical Association (NMA) is pleased that Eli Lilly and Company is taking the initiative that President Biden vowed in his State of the Union address by extending the Inflation Reduction Act out-of-pocket cap on insulin to all Americans.
While this is a move in the right direction, let’s be clear, this is a band-aid for a situation that requires sutures. The cost of life-saving prescription drugs is skyrocketing at an astronomical pace. An October 2020 study by Rand Corp. shows that Americans pay as much as five to ten times more for different types of insulin than the 32 other countries it studied. The average price, per vial of all types of insulin was $98.70. Other countries in the study would have paid a fraction of that cost. The study showed that the U. S. cost was 5.9 times higher than Japan, 6.3 times higher than Canada and 8.9 times higher than those in the United Kingdom. It further states that insulin costs for persons with employer-sponsored health insurance doubled, even after a 50% rebate.
These numbers underscore the urgent need for all drug manufacturers to not only place a cap on the out-of-pocket costs but lower the cost of the most common life-saving drug currently on the market, insulin. “We cannot allow fellow Americans to ration their medications because of the cost. We are in danger of reverting back to a time when a diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes was, in fact, a death sentence prior to the discovery of extracting and purifying insulin in 1923,” stated Dr. Garfield A. D. Clunie, 123rd president, National Medical Association. “The NMA applauds every effort to control the cost of such a globally vital drug.” Competition brought forth by newcomers in the market and the bold steps taken by the State of California to earmark funding to develop a less costly, generic product appear to be additional steps in the right direction.
(Mulcahy, 2020), Insulin Prices Are Dramatically Higher in the United States Than in Other Countries [Press Release], Retrieved from https://www.rand.org/news/press/2020/10/06.html
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Garfield Clunie, MD Contact: Michael Peery
President (312) 217-2260
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