Final signature count: 29,015

29,015 signatures toward our 50,000 goal

Diabetes is not a new disease, nor is insulin a new way of treating diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association1, the first time insulin was used on human beings to treat diabetes can be traced back over 90 years ago, to the early 1920s.

Between then and now, a lot has happened for insulin. The 1930s and the 1940s saw insulin become longer acting. In the 1970s, human insulin became available to treat diabetes, rather than the animal insulin. Synthetic insulin took the stage in the 2000s, making both short-acting and long-acting synthetics available.

But if insulin has been around to treat diabetes for so long, why does it cost now more than it ever has before?

The cost of the four most popular types of insulin has tripled over the past decade, and the out-of-pocket prescription costs patients now face have doubled2. By 2016, the average price per month rose to $450 — and costs continue to rise, so much so that as many as one in four people with diabetes are now skimping on or skipping lifesaving doses3.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have concluded that the reason the cost of insulin remains high is because when advancements were made with insulin, the pharmaceutical patents were effectively renewed. While under patent, a generic version of the drug cannot be produced4.

But the patents on the first synthetic insulin expired in 2014. A generic form of insulin can be manufactured and offered to the public at a lower cost than the brand-name insulin that has for years served as the only option5. Why hasn’t it happened yet, then? What stands in the way?

Answer: the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration. It’s lengthy. But we shouldn’t sit back and accept the wait.

Sign the petition below and tell the Commissioner of the FDA that the approval process of generic insulin needs to be expedited. Our health and our bank accounts depend on it!