Global Drug Companies Go for Gold with Aggressive Insulin Analogue Marketing

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http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/08/10/ninety-years-after-insulins-discovery-the-worlds-poor-are-still-dying/


Congolese child holding human insulin syringe and bottle of insulin. Credit: International Diabetes Federation, Brussels, Belgium

While nations and athletes compete briefly on a world stage for Olympic gold, three recent articles in the BMJ remind us that pharmaceutical companies compete across the world for real gold. For instance, the worldwide market for insulin is huge and the papers question the ethics of global pharmaceutical companies. Sanofi-Aventis, Novo-Nordisk, and Eli Lilly have all aggressively marketed a switch to newer forms of insulin that have not proven to achieve better health outcomes than cheaper insulins.

The newest forms of insulin are called “insulin analogues.” They are genetically engineered forms of insulin that alter the absorption, distribution, and metabolism of insulin. Some insulin analogues are short acting, thereby permit more rapid availability; others are long acting, slowing down release, giving people coverage over an extended period.

Together, these pharmaceutical companies have enrolled more than 400,000 people with diabetes worldwide into postmarketing studies on insulin analogues, according to one paper. Insulin is an essential health medicine for people with type 1 diabetes: people without it will die. As type 2 diabetes progresses, many people eventually require it.

In absolute terms, the insulin analogues are 2 to 4 times more costly than human insulin, and in resource-poor countries with low per capita incomes, the relative costs are astronomical. The costs are also prohibitive to the uninsured in the USA.