Just to Pre-Empt the Bullshit, Insulin Was Discovered in Canada in 1921...

[TrollBuster9090]

Insulin was discovered as a treatment for diabetes by Dr. Frederick Banting at the University of Toronto in 1921. Banting (with colleagues Collip and Best) sold the patent to the University of Toronto for $1, and the U. of T. has never exercised the patent.

NOT ONE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY SPENT ONE PENNY OF RESEARCH MONEY ON INSULIN. It was paid for entirely by (Canadian) tax dollars. So, let's just pre-empt the pity violin chorus of how pharmaceutical companies need to make a profit, or there will be no more research.

Blah..blah...blah. Just DON'T BOTHER, okay?


In truth, most R&D is done using TAX PAYER MONEY at public UNIVERSITIES. When a university discovered something useful, they patent it, and sell the patent to pharmaceutical companies. That means the tax payer foots the bill for all the research that goes nowhere, and the pharmaceutical companies PARTIALLY offset this loss by buying the rights to market the winners. But hardly any pharmaceutical research is done by the companies.

So, while I think it's okay for pharma to make profits on some medications...there is no excuse to be gouging people on INSULIN. It's discovery was completely paid for by (Canadian) tax dollars.

The original purification method was to extract insulin from animal pancreases. It is now produced in bacteria, using recombinant DNA technology, which is also common knowledge that nobody has to make a profit on.

FRED BANTING: a genuine hero

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. Thank you

Its time that we make the pharma grifters charge a very low afforda..
What am I saying..insulin should be free.

If the covid 19 vaccine can be free,lifesaving drugs like insulin should be free and freely avaliable. Same thing with epi pens. And probably a list of other lifesaving drugs.

Get profit OUT of healthcare period.

[TrollBuster9090]

7. I'm okay with profit margins for many pharmaceuticals. My argument here is just against...

...price gouging on a therapeutic protein that literally cost the pharmaceutical industry NOTHING. The discovery of insulin was made using public money, and the current technology used to produce it (recombinant DNA technology) was also discovered and developed using public money. They can't price gouge on insulin, and then claim they need to recover their costs of developing it, because they DIDN'T.

I don't have a problem with pharma producing and selling insulin for a few percentages above cost. If they did that, it would make the cost of insulin about $8 per dose, which is what it is in Australia. Or, to be more generous, maybe $13 per dose, as it is in Canada. But definitely not $100 per dose, as it is in the United States.

Insulin dose cost by country (2018)

USA: $98.7
Japan: $ 14.40
Canada: $12
Germany: $11
France: $9
U.K.: $7.52
Australia: $6.94


Beyond that, we have to be careful about profit margins on life or death pharmaceuticals. When life and death are concerned, the buyer/seller relationship changes a little bit from when you're selling cars or wrist watches to consumers. And, as such, I think it's alright for our government to intervene on our behalf. That's exactly what happens in every other country, and it hasn't killed pharmaceutical R&D in those countries. That scare tactic is only used in the USA. They scare the public by claiming R&D will stop if price gouging stops, while bribing Congress with lobby money behind the scenes.

[mathematic]

2. This post fails the most basic of fact checks

It also uses a, let's say, questionable theory of scientific attribution to innovation that I think literally nobody agrees with. Giving credit to Banting for a medication made using DNA, which was discovered decades later. Absurd.

And I can't even tell if you're more concerned about the availability of insulin or that somebody, somewhere is making money by manufacturing and supplying insulin. Take a look at your post. You talk about patents, public research, and profits. Is this just an economic position masquerading as a health care position?

[summer_in_TX]

3. Good grief.

Thanks for the heads up, mathematic. This is not at all my field and I'd have been sucked in.

After I read this, I did a little reading up. Insulin used as a medication was first used in Canada, BUT it was directly extracted from animals to be used in people.

The first synthetic insulin was used in 1982. Yes, research was done and refined in the US and beyond.

[TrollBuster9090]

4. The first insulin was extracted from animal pancreases until recombinant DNA technology was invented

Recombinant DNA technology was also developed at universities, using taxpayer money, and has never been patented. With recombinant DNA technology, you simply clone the human insulin gene into a bacterial plasmid, and then produce insulin in bacteria, instead of extracting it from animals.

Eli Lily was the first company to USE recombinant DNA technology to produce insulin in bacteria, but neither the gene nor the technology is patented.

Insulin was originally discovered using taxpayer money. Recombinant DNA technology, that enables insulin to be extracted from bacteria instead of animals was also developed using taxpayer money. The cost of producing recombinant insulin is extremely low. Therefore, the pharmaceutical companies that produce it have no excuse, other than market monopolization and price fixing, to charge as much as they do for it in the United States. They're not allowed to in other countries. They claim they have to charge as much as they do because they have to pay for the research, which is a lie. There's no reason to believe the lie, because I just explained it to you. That was my original point.

[TrollBuster9090]

6. By the way, how exactly would you have been 'sucked in?'

"After I read this, I did a little reading up. Insulin used as a medication was first used in Canada, BUT it was directly extracted from animals to be used in people.

The first synthetic insulin was used in 1982."

The time you spent reading up was a bit of a waste, considering I'd already SAID this in my post.

"The original purification method was to extract insulin from animal pancreases. It is now produced in bacteria, using recombinant DNA technology, which is also common knowledge that nobody has to make a profit on. "

[summer_in_TX]

8. It certainly had the earmarks of hyperbole.

But as I said, this is far from a field in which I have any background.

I guess I didn't understand your assertion, and still don't.

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2374888A1/en

Some Russian or Slavic-named scientists are credited with the invention behind the patent, held currently by the European company Mako LLC.

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0437320A1/en

This one was created by Korean-named scientists, and the patent is held by Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology KAIST Korea Institute of Science and Technology KIST

[TrollBuster9090]

9. The only hyperbole is paying nearly $100/dose for insulin in the United States, and less than $7 in

...in Australia. And less than $20/dose in every other developed country.

By the way, the first patent you linked to (2011) is for a modified plasmid that causes bacteria to produce more insulin than they would have using standard plasmids. It's a modification of the original technology, which was not proprietary.

Same for the other patent (1991), which is for a novel shuttle vector plasmid that would produce human insulin in plant cells instead of bacteria.

Both plasmids are tweaks of the original technology, which was developed using public money.

I apologize if my point wasn't clear. My point is that Democrats want to put a cap on how much pharmaceutical companies can charge for insulin, because Americans (and ONLY Americans) are currently being gouged. (A gouging that actually KILLS people who can't afford to pay the ransom.). If they attempt to do this, the pharmaceutical companies will counter with the false argument that they have to recover their costs of R&D for their products. While that's true for some (very few) of their products, it's not true of insulin. And people shouldn't be bamboozled by it. The truth is that insulin was discovered using public money, and the technology used to produce it was developed using public money.

[TrollBuster9090]

5. I'm not sure which facts you have a problem with.

Banting, Best, Collip and Macleod discovered insulin in 1921. That's a fact accepted by everybody except a handful of Romanians who claim the Nobel committee ignored Nicolae Paulescu's earlier work. They didn't, and even mentioned it in the Nobel Prize preamble.

The insulin that Banting discovered, and which Collip figured out how to extract from animal pancreases was used until the early 80s, when recombinant DNA technology was developed (also at universities, using taxpayer money). Eli Lily was the first company to USE the technology that had been developed at universities, to produce a therapeutic protein that was DISCOVERED at universities, and sell it at a lower price with a higher profit margin. The price has skyrocketed since then, only in the United States, due to price fixing by the pharmaceutical industry.

And if my position isn't clear, I'll explain about it. I'm concerned about the availability of insulin due to price gouging. Price gouging due to price fixing which isn't allowed to occur in other countries. Only the United States. It's ridiculously cheap to produce insulin because both the discovery of the protein, and the development of the technology used to produce it were paid for by public money. Not R&D by the pharmaceutical companies. It's ridiculously cheap to produce, but is sold for a ridiculously high profit margin. The pharmaceutical companies will say they have to charge that much in order to support R&D, which (in THIS case) is a lie.

As I said above, pharmaceutical companies do very little of their own research. They buy patents on lucrative discoveries from universities. For the expense incurred in buying the patents, the pharmaceutical industries SHOULD make profits. (Please don't waste your time building straw men.) It's just that, in the case of insulin, they didn't even have to BUY any patents.