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Comment by GenericsMotors | Hacker News Reader

Of course not, but you can't expect there to be no change in price when demand keeps going up.

That card you just used has two sides: people who are born insulin-dependent are paying more in part because of others who could have avoided developing the illness.

Address the cause of the demand increases, and you're on the way to addressing the price as well as improving peoples' quality of life.

I used to be a heavy smoker and although I've quit, I'm acutely aware that if I ever need a cancer related transplant I'll probably not be given the same priority as someone with a congenital cause - and with good reason.

I made a lifestyle choice that can have serious consequences for my health - and the same goes for people who choose to overindulge on shitty food.

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But there isn’t a limited supply of insulin or a sudden spike in demand that would drive a normal market price rise.

If anything the larger market, which is stable over time, with a product that is known and doesn’t require a lot of development & research, should be driving the price down as competitors should be pricing to gain more market share. But that’s not what’s happening, the companies are engaged in anticompetitive pricing.

Insulin supply is unlimited, is it? A larger market that requires the use of more and more animals is "stable over time"?

Like I said, address the cause of the demand increase and you'll address both the price and provide and improvement to peoples' quality of life.

I believe Humalog is insulin produced by bacteria.

There is a scaling issue but my point stands, that demand & its growth are stable and predictable. These are companies with at least 5 & 10 year plans, so they’re able to match production to demand long term.

As far as I know the bulk of insulin for human use is produced using bovine/swine cattle.

And my point still stands that preventative measures will have both a positive impact on peoples' health and on the demand for insulin.

Price gouging is definitely a problem that has to be addressed, but it's not the only one - yet seems to be what everyone focuses on first while glossing over the terrible lifestyles/habits of the population.

FYI: The majority of insulin these days is human insulin produced by GM bacteria or yeasts.

Just because there's more than one obvious problem doesn't mean that you can ignore the others.

More to the point, this isn't just about a single disease or drug, the same story applies to a lot of medication, including those that have zero lifestyle causes.

EpiPens are another example mentioned in the article. In the US if your child is born with a deadly allergy you have to carry around very expensive EpiPens that can cost hundreds of dollars due to co-pay and whatever. In Europe these will cost you directly less than $10 and even to the state will cost a lot less than it does to many US patients. One of the company's responses to hiking the price from $50 to $600 for profit reasons was to introduce a cheaper generic version, which as this article points out, is BS.

Fair enough!

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