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"The cost of insulin has skyrocketed in recent years and the
Insulin Act will make this life-saving medication more
affordable by capping the cost of insulin at $35 a month,"
Schumer said in a statement. "I will put this bipartisan
legislation on the Senate floor very soon."
The legislation from Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen and
Republican Senator Susan Collins was unveiled Wednesday. In the
narrowly divided Senate, Schumer will have to get at least 10 of
the chamber's 50 Republicans to support the bill, assuming all
50 of the Democratic caucus members line up behind it.
Around 8.4 million of the 37 million people in the United States
with diabetes use insulin, according to the American Diabetes
Association.
About one in five insured Americans pay more than $35 per month
for the treatment, while the rest pay about $23 per month,
according to a 2021 report on drug prices by health information
company IQVIA.
Three companies -- Sanofi SA, Eli Lilly and Co and Novo Nordisk
-- have long dominated the U.S. insulin market. The trio own
some 90% of the market for insulin, which was invented in the
1920s but continues to rise in cost to consumers.
The U.S. House of Representatives in March passed a bill capping
monthly out-of-pocket insulin costs for those with health
insurance at $35 as senators were drafting a wider bill that
also provided incentives for drugmakers to lower list prices.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Mark
Porter)
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