SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently vetoed legislation to cap the price of insulin, a drug that patients with diabetes rely on to manage their condition, and said work needs to be done to make the drug affordable.
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That work is underway, according to Dr. Suneil Koliwad, an endocrinologist and an expert in diabetes, obesity, and metabolism at UCSF.
“With respect to achieving insulin affordability, I think we’re getting closer all the time,” he explained on the latest episode of KCBS Radio’s “As Prescribed” with Alice Wertz. “You know, five years ago, I would not have immediately predicted that we’d be where we are now.”
Koliwad explained that there has been a bipartisan push for more affordable insulin as the number of diabetes patients in the U.S. rises. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11.3% of the U.S. population has the disease. It impacts the body’s ability to produce and use insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar.
“Diabetes is a very common disease, number one,” said Koliwad. “Number two, its commonality is increasing, which is concerning to all of us engaged in caring for people with this disease. And number three, there are pockets of individuals in large populations, very much, for example, like in California, that have exceptionally high rates of diabetes and therefore are subject to all of the complications associated with this disease.”
These include cardiovascular disease, stroke, kidney failure, eye disease leading to blindness and the vulnerability of limbs to amputation.
“The fact that in a diverse state like ours, there are individuals with exceptionally high rates of diabetes and the associated complications is really concerning to us because it not only has the potential to limit the productivity of our population, but the potential to create an immense health care burden if we don’t get a handle on it,” Koliwad warned.
Lawmakers and researchers – including the team at UCSF – are working towards improving treatment and access to treatment for the disease.
“I think there’s unanimous support for for agreeing that the landscape for diabetes care is not an equitable one in our country,” said Koliwad. “And there is widespread support for doing something about it. So that includes innovative solutions outside the box thinking and ideas, even up to and including manufacturing insulin and providing it as a state benefit to those individuals who cannot get it affordably any other way. And that’s kind of where we are right now.”
Listen to this week’s “As Prescribed” to learn more about the road to making insulin access more equitable. You can also listen to last week’s “As Prescribed” about the BLOOM clinic’s work to improve racial equity in medical care here.
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