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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

produce its own brand of generic insulin and sell it at below-market prices to people with diabetes like Sabrina Caudillo

But why? Diabetics don't want generic insulin, it's not as good as the newer insulins.

And if they want cheap generic insulin, Walmart already sells generic insulin for cheap. Why not just buy it from Walmart and subsidize it? Why would you actually try and make it yourself and sell it for below market prices? That seems like a hard way to accomplish the same thing.

What problem are they trying to solve?

I mean, the LA Times reported on Walmart's cheap insulin not a year ago.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-30/column-wal...

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Diabetics don't want generic insulin because it is slow acting and difficult to control. It takes a long time to start working and then a long time to stop, making dangerous highs and lows more likely.

Generic fast-acting insulin is now legal because patents have expired. But generic insulin is still quite expensive in the US.

Both short acting and long acting insulin is available as genetics. However the newer insulin’s allow for better control - that’s why diabetics want it.

But regardless, how does that change my argument?

Why is CA getting into generic insulin manufacturing when they could just have someone who knows what they are doing make it?

Evidently, according to the article, the plan is to contract with a drug manufacturer (so, "someone who knows what they are doing"). Since any new generic has to go through trials, I guess the state would put up the money for this.

By "make it" I mean all the way to finished product. There is a ton of expense and time to create a biosimilar insulin, not just clinical trials, but regulatory approvals and updates, safety monitoring.

Why not just find an existing seller and negotiate some pricing deal and then subsidize it for people in CA?

> Diabetics don't want generic insulin

I sure do. I use Humalog now and it's out of patent. There just isn't a generic available for it because it's just not all that cost effective to do. Creating and producing a generic for biologics (like insulins) is not simple like it is for simple chemicals. As I understand it, they need to undergo trials and the like, which drastically raises the price of creating them.

There is a generic now. https://www.goodrx.com/insulin-lispro

There's also admelog, which is not a generic but is a "biosimilar" that is much cheaper.

Sorry, I meant to say that diabetics don't want the slow-acting generic insulin Walmart sells, which the parent was discussing (except as a last resort). My wife is type 1 diabetic.

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