Sanofi becomes latest to cut insulin prices, joins Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly

Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani joins the Live show to report that Sanofi has become the latest major drug company to slash insulin prices, capping the cost at $35.

Video transcript

BRAD SMITH: Sanofi becoming one of the latest major drug companies to slash insulin prices, capping the cost at $35 after facing pressure from lawmakers. Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani has the details on this one for us. Anjalee.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right, Brad. As you mentioned, Sanofi joining the top three drug-- insulin makers, including Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the latter of which led the pack on this movement, slashing prices by 70% or more on most of their top-selling products. That includes short-acting as well as long-acting insulin types, and that's just a little bit of detail there.

But Sanofi has offered that this will take place, cutting the price by 70% and capping out-of-pocket cost for commercially insured individuals at $35 by January 1 of next year. That follows suit of what Novo Nordisk also offered, cutting its insulin price by 75% and also putting into place a 65% cut on another drug-- another insulin, also by January 1.

Eli Lilly has been a little bit more aggressive. We saw them offering to cut their insulin prices by between 70% and 75% as well as getting all of that in place by April or May of this year, including a pricing of $92 per five pack of a biosimilar to one of Sanofi's products.

So all told, all of that detailed information just to say that they're really responding to what happened in the Inflation Reduction Act with Medicare now capping out-of-pocket costs at $35. This has now become across the board. Many of these companies did take action early on. Especially late last year we saw a little bit of that reduction, especially for uninsured individuals. Some offered that $35 out-of-pocket cap or a savings card. But this is really just the biggest move across the board for that.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, and just to put-- to emphasize that real quickly, this is something that people who depend on insulin to stay alive have been pushing for for years, right?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Yes.

JULIE HYMAN: And so this is a big deal.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: This is a huge deal, and this is something that not only do these individuals rely on to stay alive, they rely on it daily, twice daily in some cases. And there's such a large mix of products that we're talking about here. So that's why it's so interesting, and the real big impact is the fact that you're talking about, you know, maybe 30 products in total that have this now across the board $35 out of pocket.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. Thanks, Anj. Appreciate it.