Eli Lilly To Begin Selling Generic Version Of Popular Insulin At Half Price.

reports that Eli Lilly will start “selling a cheaper version of its most popular insulin, Humalog, in an effort to head off criticism about the rising costs of prescription drugs, the company said Monday.” The drugmaker said it “will begin selling an ‘authorized generic’ of Humalog 100 for $137.35 per vial, a 50 percent discount off the list price.” The article explains that “an authorized generic means that, except for the label, it is identical to the brand-name drug and manufactured in the same facilities.” The new version, “which the company said would be made available as quickly as possible, will be called Insulin Lispro and will be sold through a Lilly subsidiary, ImClone Systems.” The piece adds that this move provides “a compromise to critics who have called on drugmakers to lower their list prices.” The AP (3/4, Murphy) reports that despite the discount Lilly is offering, “an advocacy group says much bigger changes are needed.” Ben Wakana, “president of the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs, said in an email that the lower prices were still too high, and Lilly’s move will help ‘only a fraction’ of the patients who need it.” On average, the price of insulin tripled from 2002 to 2013, the American Diabetes Association said. Since then, prices have been increasing by about 10 percent annually, which has led some patients to ration their medication. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/health/insulin-price-humalog-generic.html