PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — For the first time in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia's district attorney has filed a suit against nearly 20 pharmaceutical companies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) for an alleged insulin price-fixing scheme.
"This is a story about profits over patients. This is a story of price-fixing," said D.A. Larry Krasner.
Krasner, who is diabetic himself, says he is taking on Big Pharma corporations that make insulin and PBMs that put profits ahead of the lives and well-being of people.
"The pricing of insulin is criminal," the D.A. said.
"We're talking about here many, many years of collusive pricing that have already attacked the pockets of the taxpayers of Philadelphia and have already harmed an enormous number of people who are suffering from diabetes."
Krasner’s office says it costs about $2 to produce a vial of insulin, while the price per vial for consumers could range from $300 to $700.
That’s the experience of Jesse Braxton, a Central High School chemistry teacher who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 5 years old.
"Last year the out-of-pocket costs for a vial of insulin, which is enough to last three weeks for me, was about $300,” Braxton said at the D.A.’s press briefing Monday. “The out-of-pocket cost for my insulin pump is $4,000.”
Maureen May, a registered nurse for 40 years and the president of PASNAP, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, spoke with clenched fists on Monday.
"I stand here today as a caregiver, a nurse, a leader and a patient advocate,” she said.
May banged on the podium at times to emphasize her point: Insulin belongs to the people who so desperately need it.
"And it does not belong to manufacturers, the wholesale acquisition companies and the PBM and the insurance company,” she said. “It belongs to the patient."
One of the pharmaceutical corporations named in the lawsuit is Eli Lilly and Company. In a statement to KYW Newsradio, representatives of the company said, in part: "This complaint is baseless and should be dismissed, just like cases brought by other local governments have been. It’s the local governments filing these lawsuits — not Lilly — who decide the terms of the rebate arrangements they now say are improper, including whether to pass rebates on to people who take insulin.”
According to the statement, Lilly has been working for years to reduce out-of-pocket costs of insulin, and was the first — and is still the only — company to cap the monthly cost for people at $35.
CVS Health is also named in the suit.
"Pharmaceutical companies alone are responsible for the prices they set in the marketplace for the products they manufacture. Nothing in our agreements prevents drug manufacturers from lowering the prices of their insulin products and we would welcome such an action," a spokesperson for the company said.
“Allegations that we play any role in determining the prices charged by manufacturers for their products are false, and we intend to vigorously defend against this baseless suit.”