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Senate Strips Life Saving Medical Insulin Cap From Inflation Act

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Worldwide 100,000,000 people are saddled by medical debt.

Funny how all of those 100,000,000 people live in America. Greatest country ever, if you happen to be the CEO of a healthcare company.

Granted, some of the care is good, but it is not the best by any stretch of the imagination, nor available to millions of Americans.
 
SteveGrabowski said:
Unfortunately my congressman are Cruz, Cornyn, and Cuellar, three of the worst shitbirds in Washington.
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Birds are part of natures plan, they eat insects, spread seeds, etc. What they leave behind is bird shit or guano, which is a more accurate description of these life forms in congress.
 
Trovaricon said:
tl;dr: book a flight to Europe and have a doctor prescribe you the insulin here - even as a self payer you would pay approx. $50-100 for 10x3ml (300UI) cartridges. which means... It is cheaper to go collect small box with 30ml of "liquid" each month to EU as a self-paying patient than to get it in USA.
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I think it's illegal to bring in more than a 90 day supply of medicine to the US.
 
MtnMan said:
Birds are part of natures plan, they eat insects, spread seeds, etc. What they leave behind is bird shit or guano, which is a more accurate description of these life forms in congress.
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But they're shitbirds. The only thing those three do is shit on useful things.
 
SteveGrabowski said:
I think it's illegal to bring in more than a 90 day supply of medicine to the US.
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That is okay, the amount I mentioned - 10*3ml (100IU per ml - standard) pen cartridges is approximately 1-2 month usage for an adult. It is in no way "scheme how to get rich" by importing medication on your own.
I meant it really as an equivalent of dental tourism - just done every single / second month not to the "less developed" countries but western part of the EU (which only strengthens the absurdity).

Of course it would be cheaper to pick it up in Canada without crossing the Atlantic.
 
So, what's stopping someone from using one of the insulin patents that have expired and manufacturing them at cost? Isn't Mark Cuban(?) doing something along those lines?
 
Trovaricon said:
That is okay, the amount I mentioned - 10*3ml (100IU per ml - standard) pen cartridges is approximately 1-2 month usage for an adult. It is in no way "scheme how to get rich" by importing medication on your own.
I meant it really as an equivalent of dental tourism - just done every single / second month not to the "less developed" countries but western part of the EU (which only strengthens the absurdity).

Of course it would be cheaper to pick it up in Canada without crossing the Atlantic.
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Sorry I didn't mean becoming a reseller or anything. Just that it's an expensive trip to make 4 times a year. Couldn't bring back a year's worth of insulin for your own usage for example. If I was diabetic though I'd probably look at going to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico to get insulin since it's about a 3 hour straight shot from me down I-35.
 
KMFJD said:
So, what's stopping someone from using one of the insulin patents that have expired and manufacturing them at cost? Isn't Mark Cuban(?) doing something along those lines?
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The FDA creates a kind of walled garden on medications because it is so expensive and difficult to get approved to produce even a well known drug like insulin.
 
SMOGZINN said:
The FDA creates a kind of walled garden on medications because it is so expensive and difficult to get approved to produce even a well known drug like insulin.
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so a known and safe drug that's been used for generations somehow needs to be approved? that's perfect (if you own pharma stock)
 
SMOGZINN said:
The manufacturing process and facilities must be approved to insure the quality of the final product.
The FDA does more then just approve new drugs, it acts as a loose quality control for the entire industry.
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They obviously have to approve their manufacturing system i.e. making a pure product, but not how insulin works in the body. That's well established.
 
KMFJD said:
so a known and safe drug that's been used for generations somehow needs to be approved? that's perfect (if you own pharma stock)
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As stayed above, even if youre producing generics the FDA still has to approve your drug. For small molecules you dont have to go through clinical trials (as previously stated the most expensive aspect of development) but for biologics its not so simple...small molecules can be sufficiently characterized so as to claim one drug is identical to another. Its not possible to do that for biologics.

The related or analogous path for biologics like insulin is the "biosimilar" path, and that it notoriously difficult as comparability likewise has to be demonstrated, and its more diffictult to do with biologics. Biosimilars were approved for insulin in 2020 (two i believe) but the program provides similar market exclusivity (7 years instead of 20) as the original approval. For insulin the current biosimilars cost something like $100-150/vial instead of $300 for the brand name.
 
Amazing how it's impossible to do this in America but it's not an issue in other countries

-The average gross manufacturer price for a standard unit of insulin in 2018 was more than ten times the price in a sample of 32 foreign countries:$98.70 in the U.S., compared with $8.81 in the 32 non-U.S. OECD countries for which we have prescription drug data. The U.S. prices for the mix of insulin used in the U.S. were 8.1 times prices paid in all non-U.S. OECD countries combined.

aspe.hhs.gov

Comparing Insulin Prices in the U.S. to Other Countries

Insulin prices have increased dramatically over the past decade in the United States. This report presents results from international price comparisons of insulins using a price index approach. The average gross manufacturer price for a standard unit of insulin in 2018 was more than ten times...
aspe.hhs.gov aspe.hhs.gov

-When it comes to the question of generic insulin, we are faced with another complicated issue. Insulin is a therapeutic biological product (or 'biologic'), rather than a chemically synthesized molecule. This means it cannot be made as generic in the same way as other drugs. Creating what is called a biosimilar is a lot more complicated and expensive than just duplicating a chemical molecule. There is little market incentive to produce biosimiliars because it costs nearly as much as making new drug, and companies must go through all the approval stages and trials that a new drug is required to go through. Not to mention, current biosimilar insulins on the market – primarily produced by the ‘big three’ – have only reduced the price by about 10-15%. For more on biosimilars and the 2018 FDA announcement read this and this.

-it is actually legal for one insulin producer to pay another one not to enter the market.

-Patents give a person or organization a monopoly on a particular invention for a specific period of time. In the USA, it is generally 20 years. Humalog, Lantus and other previous generation insulins are now off patent, as are even older animal based insulins. So what’s going on? Pharmaceutical companies take advantage of loopholes in the U.S. patent system to build thickets of patents around their drugs which will make them last much longer (evergreening). This prevents competition and can keep prices high for decades.

8 Reasons Why Insulin is so Outrageously Expensive

Why does insulin cost so much to patients in the USA and around the world? Why is insulin, a widely sold drug of which most forms are now off-patent, so incredibly expensive? These are simple questions, but ones with a number of complicated answers. This post will break some of those answers...
www.t1international.com www.t1international.com

some interesting articles, seems to be the primary reason it's expensive is greed and the need to see others suffer
 
Genentech doesnt seem to be on the market at all, and what typically happens is the original company is better off exiting the market completely for the generics to fight over and use their capacity (if applicable) for exclusive drugs. Or they sold the end of the exclusivity off. Not sure.
 
hal2kilo said:
They obviously have to approve their manufacturing system i.e. making a pure product, but not how insulin works in the body. That's well established.
[/QUOTEthe same level of
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The process is based on self-regulation, and self-reporting by the drug companies. It is widely abused.
SMOGZINN said:
The manufacturing process and facilities must be approved to insure the quality of the final product.
The FDA does more then just approve new drugs, it acts as a loose quality control for the entire industry.
Click to expand...

lol.

India drug company skips steps for FDA generic drug approval.
 
uclaLabrat said:
To say nothing of the patent/IP shenanigans that go on to influence/extend market exclusivity.
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Then you add to all of that, countries who get the same meds from the same Big Pharma companies...at considerably less than we pay...WE pay for the majority of the R&D for the planet.
 
One thing that's...odd, funny, maybe ironic in all this...the Red states have higher incidence of diabetes than the blue states...these Republican congresscritters are fucking their own constituents...and they're happy about it.
 
BoomerD said:
Then you add to all of that, countries who get the same meds from the same Big Pharma companies...at considerably less than we pay...WE pay for the majority of the R&D for the planet.
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The reason every other country has lower drug prices is that every other country has single payer. Look at porters five forces with respect to buyer power and apply that to market access for pharmas.

Want lower drug prices? Vote single payer. Its that simple.
 
BoomerD said:
One thing that's...odd, funny, maybe ironic in all this...the Red states have higher incidence of diabetes than the blue states...these Republican congresscritters are fucking their own constituents...and they're happy about it.
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I think Texas has the most overweight people per capita. Just look at those bubus
 
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