Analog insulins are different than the type that the $1 patent is for. They are much more advanced and are much more complex to make. That doesn't speak to whether or not the current prices for insulin are reasonable (they're not)... but you make it sound like "someone invented this and made the patent free, and now people are selling it for $86"... which is not the case.; not even remotely.
- Lilly wants to set the price at, to pick a random number, $100 per bottle.
- PBM says "I need to tell the insurance company I saved them 50%, so you have to charge _my_ client 50% of list price"
- Lilly wants their business, so changes the list price to $200.
- Then Lilly "graciously" lets people without insurance use a coupon to _only_ pay $100 for it.
Everybody gets to pretend they're the good guy. But the insulin costs $5 to make.. so really, they're not (once again, made up numbers).
My curiosity got the better of me, so I rang up my mother who's had type 1 since childhood.
She said 5x3ml vials of Lispro (or just about any brand) was approx. $40 in the pharmacy.
Once she's spent more than $275-ish in a calendar year, the insulin is free (well, tax funded) until December 31st.
This is in Norway, where the state presumably negotiates good deals with big pharma as they are basically a single customer buying goods for however many of a population of 5.5M need insulin (injected, that is)