Insulin’s Been Around for a Century, So Why the High Cost?

Insulin companies are headed to Capitol Hill April 10 where they’re expected to answer for massive price increases in products that have largely stayed the same for over a decade.

They’ll be joined by the drug middlemen that arrange patients’ coverage options. Those middlemen are also to blame for increased prices, observers say, because the opacity of the whole U.S. drug supply chain allows entities to line their pockets with few consequences.

Insulin prices doubled between 2012 and 2016, according to the Health Care Cost Institute. And although the insulin most commonly used today isn’t the same as the insulin ...