Like its brand-name cousin, insulin lispro is taken at mealtimes to cover the glucose (sugar) that comes from food. It uses the same molecule as Humalog. The company says insulin lispro will roll out to pharmacies “as quickly as possible” and be sold as an authorized generic through a subsidiary, ImClone Systems. Eli Lilly is among the major insulin manufacturers — along with Sanofi and Novo Nordisk — that have faced criticism over the rapid rise of insulin prices in recent years. Humalog’s price rose by 138 percent between 2009 and 2015, according to an article published in June 2016 by Bloomberg. People with diabetes who are not covered by insurance, have high deductibles, or are affected by a coverage gap stand to benefit most from the lower price of insulin lispro. Humalog will remain available for those who have insurance plans that cover it — meaning most of them will be unaffected. “Today, 95 percent of people using Humalog pay less than $100 per month. This solution could help the 5 percent of people who are still paying higher prices, including many people in the Medicare Part D coverage gap,” Eli Lilly spokesperson Dani Barnhizer said. That’s quite a few people who could be affected, given the fact that over 7.5 million prescriptions for the various brands of insulin lispro were written in 2016, according to ClinCalc. About 10 million people in the United States, or close to 30 percent of American adults with diabetes, take insulin alone or with other medication to manage their blood sugar, according to an article published in March 2016 in the journal Diabetes Care. People with type 1 diabetes, who must take insulin to make up for what their body doesn’t make, account for 5 percent of people with diabetes. Nearly all of the rest have type 2 diabetes. RELATED: 10 Ways You May Be Sabotaging Your Insulin Therapy
Praise and Criticism of Eli Lilly Amid Skyrocketing Insulin Prices
Those who work with and advocate for people managing diabetes with insulin say the rollout of insulin lispro is a move in the right direction. People with type 1 diabetes in particular do not make their own insulin and therefore must take it to survive. “Eli Lilly announcing a lower-priced, generic version of insulin is an important step forward to make insulin more affordable,” Derek Rapp, president and CEO of the type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization JDRF, said in a statement. “People with type 1 diabetes cannot go without insulin, and we need drug companies, health plans, employers, and the government to do more until everyone who needs it has affordable access to this life-saving drug.” Also welcoming the move by Eli Lilly — and hoping Sanofi and Novo Nordisk will follow suit — is Joshua D. Miller, MD, medical director of diabetes care at Stony Brook Medicine in New York, who manages a personal diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. But he says Eli Lilly’s choice won’t address why insulin prices are rising so rapidly and have become unaffordable for some. “This simply puts a Band-Aid on the much larger crisis. Even half-price insulin lispro will be cost-prohibitive for many of my patients.” Affording insulin is such a widespread problem that cost considerations may be leading an estimated 1 in 4 of patients prescribed insulin to use less than needed, according to a study published in January 2019 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Grace Lee, MD, an endocrinologist at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle also applauds the introduction of a cheaper version of the fast-acting insulin Humalog, and hopes the cost-cutting trend can extend to brand-name Humalog, for those who are still getting it through their insurance, but “depending on the plan, may have to pay a significant copay.” Dr. Lee would also like to see long-acting insulins offered at a cheaper price in the way that the company is doing with the rapid-acting insulin lispro. “Glargine, detemir — those medications are another cost of insulin for which patients would greatly benefit from a price reduction as well.” Lee is an investigator for three clinical trials at the hospital center that are sponsored by Eli Lilly, according to Virginia Mason spokesperson. RELATED: 4 Myths About Insulin That You Need to Forget When asked if the company would tackle that next, Barnhizer of Eli Lilly says the company is still assessing whether they can follow suit with other formulations. “Given the many logistics of creating a second brand — from manufacturing to shipping to stocking at pharmacies — we are starting with Humalog U-100, which captures more than 80 percent of people who use our most commonly used insulin,” she says.
