DeGette calls insulin makers’ bluff 

Under a new plan from Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), insulin makers would be invited to drop their sticker prices to what they charged in 2006, the year when each of the “big three” insulin makers, Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, all had products on the market. In exchange for dropping their prices, they’d be shielded from reprisals from insurers and the middlemen who negotiate their discounts. It’s a unique response to insulin makers’ claims that they’ve had to raise their prices to satisfy demands from middlemen for larger rebates. 

“The bill calls industry’s bluff,” drug pricing expert Rachel Sachs told STAT. But then again, drug makers would have to opt in to the system created by DeGette’s bill, and that gives Sachs pause. 

“If the DeGette bill were to become law, we might see companies agreeing to do this. Or we might see them asking for even more benefits before they were willing to do so,” Sachs wrote in an email. “It’s the ‘If You Give a Mouse a Cookie’ theory of drug pricing.”

Normally we here at DCD don’t get too excited about a new drug pricing bill — it feels like they’re a dime a dozen nowadays — but DeGette’s bill could easily be tacked onto House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s drug pricing plan, especially given DeGette’s role on the Energy & Commerce committee.