SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California on Thursday announced it will sue the companies that make and promote most of the nation's insulin, accusing them of scheming to illegally increase the price of the drug and demanding they return millions of dollars to some diabetics who state officials say were overcharged for the medicine they must have to survive.
Attorneys general in Kansas, Arkansas,Mississippi,Minnesota and Kentucky have all filed similar lawsuits in recent years. Bonta said the manufacturers raise the price of insulin “in lockstep with each other.” The prescription drug managers then negotiate with the manufacturers to get a percentage of that price in exchange for prominently promoting their high-price insulin over cheaper alternatives.Daphne Dorsey, associate director for media relations for Eli Lilly, said the company is “disappointed by the California Attorney General's false accusations.
“Nothing in our agreements prevents drug manufacturers from lowering the prices of their insulin products and we would welcome such action,” he said. “Allegations that we play any role in determining the prices charged by manufacturers are false. We plan to vigorously defend against this complaint." A team of Canadian scientists discovered insulin a century ago. They sold the patent to the University of Toronto for just $1, hoping to avoid a monopoly that could cause high prices. But eventually, the market came to be dominated by just three companies.
The big insulin manufacturing companies have assistance programs to help people purchase insulin. Novo Nordisk said in 2021 that more than a million people used some form of the company's assistance when purchasing its insulin.