Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks invoked the COVID-19 pandemic in part, saying at a press briefing, “every country must ensure that patients have an uninterrupted access to safe and reliable medicines, and Lily is committed to that for insulin.”
The executive said he was pleased to see the $35 insulin cap for Medicare, instituted by the Inflation Reduction Act, had become law.
Eli Lilly’s decision, and Ricks’s nod to the federal insulin cap, will be a feather in the cap of the Biden administration and lawmakers who supported the measure. They were quick to laud the move Wednesday.
“Last year, I signed a law to cap insulin at $35 for seniors and I called on pharma companies to bring prices down for everyone on their own. Today, Eli Lilly did that. It’s a big deal, and it’s time for other manufacturers to follow,” President Biden said shortly after Lilly’s announcement.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, attributed the development to public pressure.
“This is what fighting back accomplishes,” he said. “At a time when Eli Lilly made over $7 billion in profits last year, public pressure forced them to reduce the price of insulin by 70 percent.”
The senator also announced he will soon be introducing legislation to cap the price of insulin at $20 a vial.
It remains unclear how Eli Lilly will adjust to this price change for its flagship product.
While Ricks spoke at length on how this action will benefits insulin-dependent diabetics when it goes into effect later this year, he was less enthusiastic to speak on how it would affect his company financially, only saying that it had been in the works “for a long time.”
