Price cap move to help Eli Lilly remain dominant player in insulin market: GlobalData

New Delhi: Eli Lilly recently announced that it will reduce the price of its insulin Humalog by 70 per cent in the US and cap the out-of-pocket cost for those on commercial insurance at $35 per month. This is the second time Lilly has significantly reduced the cost of its insulin after lowering the list price of Humalog by 50 per cent in 2019. GlobalData predicts that as a result of these pricing measures, it is likely that Lilly will remain a leading manufacturer in the insulin market due to its strong position to compete on lower insulin prices.

Lilly’s move follows the Inflation Reduction Act, a recent US federal regulation, that legislated reducing the Medicare beneficiary insulin out-of-pocket costs to $35 per month.

Commenting on the current scenario of the pharma industry Akash Patel, Pharma Analyst, GlobalData, said, “The future of the insulin market is likely to feature increased competition driven by federally mediated price-capping, the rollout of biosimilars across the global market, and the launch of once-weekly basal insulins from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.”

GlobalData suggests that Lilly will likely maintain or increase its market share in the basal insulin space as the average out-of-pocket cost for its insulin products is already below the $35 price cap. However, there is steadily increasing pressure on its market share in China, with several companies developing insulin lispro biosimilars, and alternative lower-priced insulins such as Viatris’s Semglee (insulin glargine), informed the data and analytics company.

“The increasing wave of patient advocacy for equity of access to insulin will continue to drive down insulin prices and likely lead to competition between Lilly, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk for the pricing and sales of their major branded insulins. In the face of continued competition, Lilly has developed a recently authorized biosimilar, Rezvoglar, to Sanofi’s leading branded insulin glargine (Lantus),” concluded Patel.