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Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden, the committee's top
Democrat, sent letters to the heads of Eli Lilly and Co, Novo
Nordisk A/S and Sanofi SA, the long-time leading manufacturers
of insulin.
The senators pointed to similar, large insulin price increases
at all three companies. Eli Lilly's Humalog, for instance, rose
from $35 to $234 per dose between 2001 and 2015, a 585 percent
increase, they wrote. Insulin has been available since the early
20th century.
The senators asked for information on the process used to
determine list prices and the process used to determine net
prices after negotiations with pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs)
and health insurance plans. Their letters also asked for
information about the cost of research and development,
production, revenues and gross margins from insulin sales.
"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 their
letters.
"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," they wrote.
(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Marguerita Choy and
Richard Chang)
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