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 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.
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.
Around 8.4 million of the 37 million people in the United States with diabetes use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Persons:
George Frey, Eli Lilly, Maggie Hassan, Tina Smith, Lilly, Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Hassan, Smith, Patrick Wingrove, Bill Berkrot
Organizations:
Novo Nordisk Pharmaceutical, REUTERS, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Democratic, U.S, Democrat, American Diabetes Association, Thomson
Locations:
Provo , Utah, U.S, United States