The Fight For An Affordable Insulin Leads To The FDA

Diabetes is not a new disease, nor is insulin a new way of treating diabetes.

In fact, the first time insulin was used on human beings to treat diabetes can be traced back over 90 years ago, to the early 1920s.

“In January 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old boy dying from diabetes in a Toronto hospital, became the first person to receive an injection of insulin,” the American Diabetes Association reports. “Within 24 hours, Leonard’s dangerously high blood glucose levels dropped to near-normal levels.”

Insulin was first synthesized to be used as medicine in the 1920s.
Insulin was first synthesized to be used as medicine in the 1920s.

The news about insulin spread quickly and two years later the scientists who worked on creating it received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Between then and now, a lot has happened for insulin. The 1930s and the 1940s saw insulin become longer acting. In the 1970s, human insulin became available to treat diabetes, rather than the animal insulin. Synthetic insulin took the stage in the 2000s, making both short-acting and long-acting synthetics available.

In recent years, insulin prescriptions have cost patients as much as $450 a month.
In recent years, insulin prescriptions have cost patients as much as $450 a month.

But if insulin has been around to treat diabetes for so long, why does it cost now more than it ever has before?

According to a study published in Jama Network, the cost of the four most popular types of insulin has tripled over the past decade, and the out-of-pocket prescription costs patients now face have doubled.

Insulin is a critical medicine for people living with diabetes.
Insulin is a critical medicine for people living with diabetes.

By 2016, diabetics were forced to pay as much as $450 a month for insulin, Vox reports, and the price is still rising. Today, one in four people with diabetes are now taking less insulin or skipping doses of the medicine they need to survive, another study shows.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have concluded that the reason the cost of insulin remains high is because when advancements were made with insulin, the pharmaceutical patents were effectively renewed. While under patent, a generic version of the drug cannot be produced.

High insulin prices have prompted some patients to skip doses.
High insulin prices have prompted some patients to skip doses.

The patents on the first synthetic insulin expired in 2014, Healthline reports . A generic form of insulin can be manufactured and offered to the public at a lower cost than the brand-name insulin that has for years served as the only option. Why hasn’t it happened yet, then? What stands in the way?

Join us in demanding an affordable insulin option.
Join us in demanding an affordable insulin option.

The reason is the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration is lengthy. But we shouldn’t sit back and accept the wait.

Demand an affordable option for insulin today. Click below to make a difference.

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