HEALTH California announces plan to produce $30 insulin

jward

jward

passin' thru

California announces plan to produce $30 insulin​


Updated on: March 18, 2023 / 10:34 PM / CBS/AP​


California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Saturday that the state has launched a 10-year partnership with a drug maker to produce insulin for its residents at a significantly lower cost.

The state plans to sell insulin at a cost of $30 for a 10-milliliter vial, Newsom said in a press conference Saturday near Los Angeles. The insulin will be manufactured by Civica Rx, a nonprofit drug company. The product is not expected on store shelves until at least next year.
"Thank you for being willing to disrupt the market," Newsom said. "Thank you for being willing to save lives without fear of failure, but more importantly without money being your motivator."

Back in July 2022, Newsom announced that he had approved a budget that allocated $100 million for California to make its own insulin.
Many questions remain, however. The state and Civica have yet to locate a California-based manufacturing facility. Regulatory approvals will be needed. It's possible competitors could slash their prices and undercut the state product.

This also comes after several major insulin manufacturers recently announced that they will be slashing prices too. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk said this month they will lower the cost of insulin by up to 70% and 75%, respectively.


Eli Lilly said it would automatically cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 for insured individuals, and expand its Insulin Value Program.
Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide consumer health care advocacy group, welcomed Newsom's announcement, saying efforts by California and others to develop a competing generic are likely a factor in getting insulin manufacturers to cut their prices.

Still, there are obstacles.
"The work to develop a generic, get FDA approval and set up manufacturing will take real time," Wright said in an email. "There may even be more time in the effort to get doctors to prescribe the drug, insurers and (pharmacy benefit managers) to include it on their formularies and patients and the public to accept and ask for it."


There could be other risks. State analysts have warned that California's entry into the market could prompt other manufacturers to reduce the availability of their drugs, a potential unintended consequence.
Even with the challenges of entering a competitive, established market, Newsom said taxpayers would have "very ample protections."

If for whatever reason the deal didn't work out to the state's benefit, "there's all kinds of provisions that would allow us to ... pull out," he said.
According to state documents, the proposed program could save many patients between $2,000 and $4,000 a year. In addition, lower costs could result in substantial savings because the state buys the product every year for the millions of people on its publicly funded health plans.

Just days ago, President Biden said his administration is focused "intensely" on lowering health care costs, including pressuring pharmaceutical companies to lower the costs of insulin. Legislation enacted last year capped copayments for insulin at $35 per month for Medicare beneficiaries. Biden has proposed extending that cap to all Americans.
The state of California also is exploring the possibility of bringing other drugs to market, including the overdose medication Naloxone. The drug, available as a nasal spray and in an injectable form, is considered a key tool in the battle against a nationwide overdose crisis.

"We are not stopping here," Newsom said.

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www.cbsnews.com

California announces plan to produce $30 insulin

The product is not expected on store shelves until at least next year.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
 
Hermantribe

Hermantribe

Veteran Member
The Walmart by me sells the insulin at that price, but it’s an older version. It works for me, but slower than the NovoLog. I have a bottle stashed away on the fridge tho just in case
 
bw

bw

Fringe Ranger
I know nothing about using insulin. What kind of time period does that normally cover?
 
Reasonable Rascal

Reasonable Rascal

Veteran Member
bw said:
I know nothing about using insulin. What kind of time period does that normally cover?
Click to expand...
The correct answer is " it depends."

Lot of people take insulin on a sliding scale so they may take as little as two units at a time, or they may take 40 units at a time. Common insulin is dosed out at 100 units per milliliter. So there will be 1,000 units in that 10 ml/cc vial. Some people will have to take 40 to 60 units at a time routinely. So they will still need several vials in a month's time. The insulin they are talking about is of a shorter duration type insulin. Not the long-acting stuff. So that's only going to affect so many people. They aren't talking about Lantus or other long-acting insulins.

RR
 
P

parsonswife

Veteran Member
I buy the N insulin from Walmart for $25. two shots a day at 20 units. I have in the frig a 9 month supply (expiration datFeb 2024) it will still just fine in the frig. once out and open it loses strength is about 30 days at room temp. I would love to do Levimer or Lantus pens but they are SO DANG EXPENSIVE and not covered by Medicare for me at this time.
Diabetic care is SO much better than when I home nursed my mom. Still praying for full healing.

BTW if you have the shooting fire pain in the legs and feet try BENFOTIAMINE.....within 2 days the shooting electric shocks stopped. It is a lab made version of B1. apparently Diabetics dont process natural b1 correctly. It was a game changer for me

Research​

Benfotiamine has been studied in laboratory models of diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy, and nephropathy.[10] A 2021 review of its use for diabetic polyneuropathy described two clinical trials which showed improvements in neuropathic pain and neuropathic symptoms scores, the latter of which showed a dose-response effect.[4] The authors concluded that it could potentially serve as an economical supplement to enhance neuropathy treatment and that more research is needed.

Administration of benfotiamine may increase intracellular levels of thiamine diphosphate, a cofactor of transketolase.[10] Based on metabolic theories of Alzheimer's disease, since thiamine-dependent processes are critical in glucose metabolism and are diminished in brains of Alzheimer's disease patients at autopsy, and since treatment of mouse models of Alzheimer's disease with benfotiamine diminishes plaques, decreases phosphorylation of tau and reverses memory deficits, benfotiamine administration has been proposed as a possible intervention to reverse biological and clinical processes of Alzheimer's disease.[11]
 
P

PrairieMoon

Veteran Member
parsonswife said:
BTW if you have the shooting fire pain in the legs and feet try BENFOTIAMINE.....within 2 days the shooting electric shocks stopped. It is a lab made version of B1. apparently Diabetics dont process natural b1 correctly. It was a game changer for me
Click to expand...

Thank you for this info! What dosage do you take?
 
Melodi

Melodi

Disaster Cat
This was only a matter of time. Nearly twenty years ago now, several third-world countries were starting to tell Big Pharma to stuff themselves. Both India and, I believe, South Africa were happily willing to fill in the gap by breaking copyright and manufacturing life-saving drugs—especially those treating HIV in Africa and things people have to have, like insulin.

The Big Pharma companies were so terrified they suddenly, pretty much all at once, offered these countries access to "cheap" versions of their drugs. Sometimes as "experimental" and others as "compassionate use." The "Compassion" was the abject terror that once the cats were out of the bags, there would be no stuffing them back in.

They bought themselves about twenty more years of costing individuals and the government billions of dollars by making drugs that cost a lot to develop but are often relatively cheap to manufacture. I think they hoped to start dealing with that with the mRNA vaccines that Nightwolf told me before he died; they wanted to substitute for all vaccines because they were so cheap and fast to produce. He felt that is why they went full steam ahead even when the first study results (which he read) was terrible. He said any other vaccine would have been off the market before it got there, which they admitted to in their write-ups for doctors and researchers.

Now California (a third-world country in some ways) is taking matters into its own hands; I suspect soon to be followed by some other countries. I expect Russia, China (or both), and nations friendly to them, like India, to start doing the same. Russia has already been cast into "outer darkness" by the West, so they have little to lose and much to gain. They still have some first-class labs and factories that could be refurbished, or they could outsource to friendly nations that do, like India. China might not be far behind, but it will not be as trusted for a long time. The elites in either country can still access some outside medicine for special conditions as money talks.

The Big Pharma companies will only have themselves to blame when the US Congress and the US States start allowing and encouraging their insurers and medical programs to negotiate en mass with the companies as almost every other Western Country does. Their days of using the US population as cash cows will likely end soon. Either because of new legislation or simply because no one can afford them anymore. The second way would be harsh, and many people would die, but it will happen by default if nothing is done. It is already there for many people.
 
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