Reduce the price by 70%! Lilly, the American insulin giant, made a big price adjustment, and the monthly deductible limit was $35.
Lilly, the American insulin giant, will cut the price of insulin by 70%.
On March 1st, local time, American pharmaceutical giant Lilly announced that its two best-selling insulin products, Humalog (human insulin) and Humulin (insulin injection), would be reduced by 70%, effective from the fourth quarter of 2023. In addition, Lilly plans to expand its insulin value plan, limiting patients’ out-of-pocket expenses to $35 or less per month.
Judging from the specific selling prices of the above two products, the price of a 10 ml bottle of quick-acting Humalog is $274.70, which will be reduced to $66.40, and the price of the same dose of Humulin is $148.70, which will be reduced to $44.61.
Lilly is one of the three giants of insulin in the world. The company is headquartered in Indiana, USA, and has about 37,000 employees worldwide. The other two insulin giants are Novo Nordisk in Denmark and Sanofi in France, and Novo Nordisk has always been the leader.
"Although the current health care system provides insulin for most diabetics, it still can’t provide everyone with affordable insulin, which needs to be changed." David A. Ricks, chairman and CEO of Lilly, said that Lilly’s announcement of a sharp price reduction will have a real impact on American diabetics, but the price reduction needs time for the implementation of insurance and pharmacy systems, and the company is taking relevant measures.
In addition to the price reduction of insulin products commonly used in the above products, Lilly also said that the price of unbranded insulin will be reduced from $82 to $25 per bottle, with a price reduction rate of 69.5%, which will start on May 1, which is also the lowest price level among all insulin used by diabetic patients before and after meals, lower than the price of Humalog products of Lilly in 1999. Rezvoglar, another insulin product, is a biosimilar of Sanofi’s insulin product Lantus, which will be launched on April 1st, and its price is 78% lower than that of Sanofi’s products.
In response to Lilly’s price reduction, Chuck Henderson, CEO of American Diabetes Association, bluntly encouraged other insulin manufacturers to do the same.
According to Forbes, Lilly Company’s involvement in insulin production can be traced back to more than a century ago. In the 1920s, Lilly Company became the first company to mass-produce human insulin for treating diabetes. Today, the company produces several different insulin products, and its revenue fell by more than 10% in 2022 due to the falling prices in the United States and abroad.
In recent years, Lilly has been criticized for pricing its insulin products. In January this year, the Attorney General of California filed a lawsuit against Lilly and other insulin manufacturers, accusing these companies of using their market influence to charge excessive insulin fees to diabetic patients. Several other states have filed similar lawsuits. Lilly denied these allegations.
Why limit the out-of-pocket cost of insulin products to $35 per month? It is reported that in August 2022, the US Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which stipulated that the upper limit of insulin out-of-pocket expenses for patients covered by Part D of medical insurance was $35 per month, which took effect on January 1, 2023; Patients with general medical insurance will enjoy a monthly price ceiling of $35 from July 1, 2023.
Lilly said that patients without medical insurance can also apply for the company’s insulin value plan and get Lilly’s insulin at a price of $35 per month.
As of March 1, EST, Lilly’s share price rose 0.94% to $314.150/share, with a total market value of $298.6 billion.