Eli Lilly, the world鈥檚 second-largest maker of anti-diabetes drugs, has become one of several companies to fall victim to fake-but-verified Twitter accounts spreading false information last week. On November 10, a 鈥渧erified鈥 account using the handle @EliLillyandCo tweeted 鈥淲e are excited to announce insulin is free now鈥 in the company鈥檚 name, quickly gathering thousands of likes and retweets. By the time the tweet was eventually flagged and deleted, the damage had already been done: Eli Lilly鈥檚 stock price dropped by more than 4 percent the next day, wiping out billions in market capitalization. And just like that, the issue of insulin prices was back on the agenda.
The matter of fact is that insulin is neither free nor cheap, especially in the United States, where 1.3 million with diabetes were forced to skip, delay or reduce their insulin intake to save money at some point in 2021. That鈥檚 according to , which found that insulin rationing was most prevalent among Black Americans, at 23 percent, compared to 16 percent among white and Hispanic Americans. While the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Biden in August, will partly address the problem by capping the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for senior on Medicare from January 1, millions of Americans who are uninsured or have private health insurance will continue to grapple with sky-high insulin prices.
As the following chart based on estimates from 糖心破解版鈥檚 Health Market Outlook shows, the U.S. is by far the largest market for diabetes drugs, accounting for nearly half the global revenue from sales of insulin and other anti-diabetes medication. That is mostly due to the fact that insulin prices in America are many times higher than anywhere else in the world, as a study published by the in 2020 found out.
