Happy Tuesday and welcome to another edition of D.C. Diagnosis. Your author is still embarrassingly proud of his #healthpolicyvalentine. He’s also struck by both the House and Senate’s upcoming hearings on why vaccinations are important. As always, send tips and other comments my way: nicholas.florko@statnews.com.
Insulin makers are lawyering up to face Congress, but do they deserve all the blame?
Insulin makers are increasingly being signaled out as the face of rising prescription drugs, and they’re lawyering up to deal with it. Sanofi has hired Arnold & Porter to handle congressional oversight, Sanofi confirmed to STAT. The firm is among the world’s best at navigating congressional investigations. (They also represented Martha Stewart before the House Energy & Commerce Committee, way back in 2002.)
Sanofi is juggling no less than three different congressional investigations into its pricing of insulin. The company’s CEO, Olivier Brandicourt, will also testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 26.
Speaking of hearings, lawmakers had lots of questions about insulin prices at last week’s House Ways & Means Committee hearing. But one question multiple lawmakers raised really stuck out to me in particular: Why has there never been generic insulin?
So, I started asking around. I quickly found out that, like most things in health care, it’s complicated. But what I took away was that insulin makers themselves are only partially to blame for their control over the market — in reality, generic drug makers, the FDA, and even doctors deserve some of the blame, too. Read more.
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