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Insulin Price Increases Class Action Overview
- Who: A group of clinics that serve low-income patients has launched an antitrust class action lawsuit against four major pharmaceutical companies.
- Why: The clinics say that Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca conspired to cause insulin price increases by unilaterally refusing to offer the medications at a discount allegedly mandated by federal public health law.
- Where: The complaint was lodged in New York federal court.
A group of New York clinics have launched a class action lawsuit claiming four major pharmaceutical companies, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca, conspired to cause insulin price increases for poor and underserved patients.
Mosaic Health, the entity covering 22 “safety net” clinics who serve low-income patients, wants to represent other clinics and contract pharmacies. The clinics say they were forced to pay for insulin price increases driven by Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca’s unilateral decision to stop offering drug discounts to contract pharmacies under a federal public health law called the 340B Drug Discount.
Mosaic Health alleges that the pharmaceutical companies “dominate the lucrative diabetes markets” and represent the only providers of certain types of insulin required by diabetes patients. Allegedly, these medications were offered to Mosaic Health clinics and other medical providers at a discount under federal public health law until the summer of 2020.
That summer, Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca insisted that the law, 340B Drug Discounts, was voluntary and stopped participating, alleges the class action lawsuit. As a result, insulin prices increased for Mosaic Health clinics and other safety net health centers and pharmacies.
“Those harmed by those actions are safety-net hospitals and clinics, which provide healthcare services to low-income and underserved patients, funded in significant part through savings from 340B Drug Discounts,” alleges the class action lawsuit.
The effort to increase prices for safety-net clinics and contract pharmacies was a part of a larger effort on the part of Sanofi, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca to drive insulin prices higher by lobbying the government to remove the drug discount more broadly, alleges the class action lawsuit. When that effort failed, the companies conspired to target contract pharmacies and safety-net clinics in 2020, say the plaintiffs.
Indeed, pharmaceutical companies have been trying to buck federally mandated drug discounts for some time now, according to Fierce Healthcare. They claim that the savings are not being passed on to patients and they want to avoid duplicative discounts found under the Medicaid program.
“We have offered to supply our penny priced insulins at the 340B price to any contract pharmacy that commits to passing the discount directly to the patient without limitation,” Eli Lilly reportedly said in response to the lawsuit which it described as “baseless.”
Insulin price increases have been worrying diabetes patients for years. In 2017, diabetes patients hit Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly with an antitrust class action lawsuit alleging a huge price hike to insulin left patients at risk for kidney failure and heart disease.
Do you purchase insulin from a safety net clinic or contract pharmacy? Are you concerned about insulin price increases? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
The plaintiff is represented by Brian M. Feldman, Lauren R. Mendolera, and Samuel P. Reger of Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, and Bryan L. Clobes and Ellen Meriwether of Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel LLP.
The Insulin Price Increases Class Action Lawsuit is Mosaic Health, Inc. v. Sanofi-Aventis U.S., LLC et al., Case No. 6:21-cv-06507 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.
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13 thoughts onInsulin Price Increases Driven by Collusion Between Major Drug Cos, Claims Class Action Lawsuit
I have been an insulin dependent diabetic for , since 1991. I wish some thing would of came out some time ago, it would of prevented a lot of hospital stays for me. I speak for my brother James also, whom I just lost (03/21/2023) due to diabetes, high sugar, hyperglycemia, his death certificate reads Diabetes Miletus. He was just about to turn 54 years of age. He had a heart attack due to the complications that come from Diabetes. As if the dealing with the watch what you eat, accuchecks 6-8 times a day, then like in my situation, I am very active, physically, I had a low sugar just the other day cutting the yard, walking behind a mower. I cant imagine what the neighbors think. Look at that weirdo, intoxicated fool…..They all ready think I don’t know what of my house, paramedics there all the time…..Low sugars, high sugars ect…. The local fire dept, nine blocks away from our house, a 2 min car ride just casually Sunday driving, the fire men, paramedics gained this attitude towards my brother, a really nasty bad attitude, because of the way he not knowingly reacted when he had issues. I witnessed one of them pick my brother up and slam him to our living room tile floor with his knee in my brothers chest. He suffered a dis located shoulder and a couple bruised ribs, since his passing a couple of months ago, I have come across all his paper work trying to file a claim against the medic, I mean there must have been like 5+ of them in our living room surrounding my brother, none to his aide. None to write it in their reports, honestly what had happened that day….. It took them over 20 min to get to the house that fatal day, nine blocks away. No sirens, no flashing lights, in no emergency fashion, them well aware of where the were going and for who……… I’m sorry I just had to vent a little DIABETES and the cost of Insulin, Yeah it is outrageous, then if you’re on two of them( Lantus and Humalog) x 2 each a month. I wish it was stocks I was investing in for as long as I have been a diabetic………Hey thank you for letting me share my diabetes story
please add me, been on insulin for years
Please add me