United States: the Eli Lilly laboratory drastically reduces the price of its insulin
Humalog, Eli Lilly's insulin now has a price cap of $35.
AP - Pablo Salinas
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
One of the main insulin-producing laboratories in the United States has decided to drastically lower the price of some of its products, to the great satisfaction of the White House.
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He is one of Joe Biden's hobbyhorses.
In a country that has more than 30 million diabetics and while seven million of them need treatment, it is a public health issue, social justice and therefore a political issue, reports our correspondent in Washington,
Guillaume Naudin
.
Last summer's law to reduce inflation was able to limit the rest to be paid by seniors who benefit from public health insurance to 35 dollars per month.
Since then, on every occasion, including in his last state of the union address, the president has asked the laboratories to follow suit.
It must be said that some products are very expensive and sometimes cost up to 1000 dollars per month for those who do not benefit from regulated prices.
Faced with this victory, Joe Biden does not sulk his pleasure.
In a press release, he talks about a very important decision, and he invites the competition to line up.
“
Insulin costs less than $10 to make, but Americans sometimes have to pay over $300 to get it.
It is simply unfair
”, he underlined before urging other pharmaceutical companies to “
follow
” this example.
70% price reduction
This is also what Eli Lilly is doing, which has in its projects products comparable to those of other laboratories, for much less and thus conquer shares of a market clearly sufficiently juicy to be able to afford this kind of monumental discounts.
In detail, the laboratory will on the one hand reduce the price of
its best-selling insulins
, Humalog and Humulin, by 70% from the fourth quarter of 2023. Eli Lilly will at the same time reduce the price of its generic insulin Insulin Lispro to 25 dollars per bottle from May 1, compared to 82 dollars currently.
The group will also cap the maximum amount to be paid at $35 per month for insured patients who have to pay an additional charge and for uninsured patients, thus aligning itself with proposals from the US government.
Eli Lilly unwittingly came under fire in November after he posted a tweet from a spoofed Twitter account promising free insulin.
The episode had revived the debate on the price of the drug.
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