Insulin Manufacturers Hit With Price Hike Class Action Lawsuit

Diabetes patients hit Sanofi U.S., Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly with a class action lawsuit over the huge price hike to insulin that left patients at risk for kidney failure and heart disease.

Lead plaintiffs allege in their class action lawsuit that the insulin manufacturers conspired to force prices to increase 150 percent over five years, in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The plaintiffs allege that the price hike put patients at risk of health problems because they couldn’t afford adequate amounts of insulin.

This is the first class action lawsuit after several U.S. Senators wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission calling attention to the rapidly rising insulin prices and asking for an investigation.

“People living with diabetes are practically imprisoned under the price hikes and sadly are resorting to extreme measures to afford the medication they need to live,” Hagens Berman managing partner Steve Berman said in the statement.

According to the complaint, when a diabetes patient cannot afford the $300 to $400 refill, they put themselves at risk of heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and amputation, among other health problems when they have to limit their insulin use. Some diabetics have to spend more than $900 a month on insulin, the plaintiffs further allege.

The plaintiffs also claim that some patients have secured free insulin by sending themselves into a potentially deadly condition called diabetic ketoacidosis and being rushed to local hospitals.

The insulin manufacturers claim there was no collusion to drive up the prices. In a statement, a representative for Novo Nordisk said that the company has “a long-standing commitment to supporting patients’ access to our medicines.”

According to the class action, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk made secret agreements with drug price middlemen like Express Scripts Holding Co. to negotiate higher prices with insurance companies.

The plaintiffs claim that the manufacturers offered one price to the public and another, lower, price to the middlemen negotiators. The negotiators then allegedly resell the drugs to the public at the listed price and take a cut.

According to the plaintiffs, if the difference between the prices is greater, the negotiators get a bigger cut and favor that manufacturer. This created competition between the manufacturers to increase prices leading to skyrocketing prices for patients.

“As a result, defendants’ benchmark-price arms race has saddled individuals living with diabetes — whether insured and paying benchmark prices before they hit their large deductibles, insured and paying increasingly common coinsurance, or uninsured and paying full benchmark prices for all drugs — with crushing out-of-pocket expenses,” contend the plaintiffs in their complaint.

The putative Class is represented by Thomas Sobol, Hannah Brennan and Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP.

The Insulin Price Hike Class Action Lawsuit is Chaires, et al. v. Sanofi U.S., et al., Case No. 1:17-cv-10158, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.