|
Democratic Senators Maggie Hassan and Tina Smith sent a letter
asking the drugmakers for information on eligibility criteria
for the programs, including whether a patient’s insurance status
or income barred them from joining, and the steps insulin users
had to take to sign up.
Novo, Lilly and Sanofi, which account for 90% of the U.S.
insulin market, pledged in March to lower the list prices of
many of their insulin products by 70%-78% later this year or in
2024. The Biden administration and some lawmakers have continued
to press them to lower the costs of the medicines.
The White House on Tuesday announced that a Novo insulin was
among the 10 high-cost prescription drugs selected for the
first-ever price negotiations by the U.S. Medicare health
program that covers 66 million people.
In July, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, released a report
showing that pharmacies were charging as much as $330 for
Lilly’s generic insulin, despite the drugmaker having lowered
the cost to $25 a vial. Lilly said it did not control how much
pharmacies demand for its drugs.
Hassan and Smith argued that to enroll in the drugmakers’
insulin programs, patients had to go through a lengthy and
complicated process that required them fill out five to 10 pages
of documentation and wait an unknown amount of time for
approval.
The senators asked for copies of the applications for each of
the companies' programs, for details of any additional steps
patients had to take to join, and average wait times before
approval, as well as what personal and medical information
patients had to hand over.
Around 8.4 million of the 37 million people in the United States
with diabetes use insulin, according to the American Diabetes
Association.
(Reporting by Patrick Wingrove; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
