WASHINGTON
– U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ranking
Member Ron Wyden of Oregon today began a bipartisan investigation into insulin
prices. The probe is part of the committee’s broader effort to examine drug
pricing in the United States and rising costs for consumers and taxpayers.
The
senators sent letters to leading insulin manufacturers Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk
and Sanofi seeking information regarding recent price increases of up to 500%
or more for insulin, a hormone used to treat diabetes that has been on the
market for nearly one hundred years.
Grassley
and Wyden requested information on the process used to determine list prices
and the process used to determine net prices that result from negotiations and
agreements with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and large commercial plans.
The letters also request information about the cost of research and
development, production and marketing and advertising, revenues and gross
margins from selling insulin, as well as the companies’ funding of patient
assistance programs and third-party tax-exempt organizations.
The
price of Eli Lilly’s Humalog increased from $35 to $234 between 2001 and 2015,
a 585% increase. The price of Novo Nordisk’s Novolog increased from $289 to
$540 between 2013 and 2019, an approximately 87% increase. The price of
Sanofi’s Lantus increased from $244 to $431 between 2013 and 2019, an
approximately 77% increase. Medicare and Medicaid spend hundreds of millions of
dollars on each of these drugs every year.
The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that more than 30
million Americans have diabetes. On January 29, the Finance Committee held a hearing
on drug pricing and witness Kathy Sego testified
that her son, worried about the financial burden that the monthly $1,700 cost
of insulin was having on his parents, began rationing treatment at the
sacrifice of his health.
“These
hardships can lead to serious medical complications that are entirely
preventable and completely unacceptable for the world’s wealthiest country,”
the senators wrote. “In addition, the increased price of insulin has caused
federal programs to pay more for diabetes care…When one insulin product costs
the taxpayer more than a billion dollars in one year, the American people ought
to know how the company prices its product. We are concerned that the
substantial increases in the price of insulin over the past several years will
continue their upward drive and pose increasingly severe hardships not only on
patients that require access to the drug in order to stay alive but also on the
taxpayer.”
The
Senate Finance Committee is tasked with oversight of Medicare and Medicaid,
which are administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The
letter to Eli Lilly can be found HERE.
The
letter to Novo Nordisk can be found HERE.
The
letter to Sanofi can be found HERE.
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