Lilly's Carelessness in Discontinuing 3 mL vials of Humalog Causes Shortages in 10 mL vials of Humalog + Unbranded Lispro
Last week, the JDRF shared newshttps://x.com/JDRF/status/1770848177354137650 in a series of three Tweets about how Eli Lilly& Company, Inc. was reporting that 10 mL vials of Humalog and the company ' s identical, unbranded (meaning Lilly sells it using the generic drug name rather than brand-name Humalog) version of Humalog known as Lilly Insulin Lispro Injection could be facing temporary lack of availability in selected locations around the country. Lilly tried to reassure everyone that it was only a temporary issue. But while Lilly complains it cannot keep up with demand for Mounjaro/Zepbound, it is having its own su...
Source: Scott's Web Log - April 9, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2024 Humalog lispro vials Source Type: blogs
Costco Weight-Loss Program: Omission of Critical Data Puts Patients at (Financial) Risk
This week, the world learned that Costco Wholesale would start selling Novo Nordisk ' s newest, but vastly overpriced GLP-1 inhibitor medicine known generically as semaglutide (sold under the brand names Ozempic and Rybelsus for Type 2 diabetes, and under the brand name of Wegovy for weight-loss for those with obesity without Type 2 diabetes). We learned of the Costco GLP-1 initiative from a press release from Costco ' s strategic partner known as Sesamehttps://sesamecare.com/ which is the entity which will connect patients with its network of thousands of outpatient healthcare providers nationwide who are more than w...
Source: Scott's Web Log - April 3, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2024 biosimilars Costco GLP-1 inhibitor liraglutide semaglutide Sesame Source Type: blogs
Will Americans Get PBM Reform in 2024? Maybe, But Many Things Need to Happen In Order to Get There. On the Upside: Insulin Has Opted Out of PBM Sales.
At the core of this post is a YouTube video which can be viewed in the middle of this blog post. The subject is about whether we ' ll get much-needed legislation passed into law to reform corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) which we know with absolute certainty were at fault for runaway insulin prices. At least that was true until March 2023, when the three largest insulin manufacturers, starting withLilly, followed byNovo Nordisk and shortly thereafter,Sanofi all announced major insulin list price reductions in the range of 70% to 78%. Think about that for a second: Imagine being able to instantly...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 17, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2024 Congress insulin prices PBM rebates reform Source Type: blogs
Will Americans Get PBM Reform in 2024? Maybe, But Many Things Need to Happen I Order to Get There. On the Upside: Insulin Has Opted Out of PBM Sales.
At the core of this post is a YouTube video which can be viewed in the middle of this blog post. The subject is about whether we ' ll get much-needed legislation passed into law to reform corrupt Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) which we know with absolute certainty were at fault for runaway insulin prices. At least that was true until March 2023, when the three largest insulin manufacturers, starting withLilly, followed byNovo Nordisk and shortly thereafter,Sanofi all announced major insulin list price reductions in the range of 70% to 78%. Think about that for a second: Imagine being able to instantly...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 17, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2024 Congress insulin prices PBM rebates reform Source Type: blogs
Is It Worth Buying Dexcom CGM Sensors from Best Buy Health? The only way to know with certainty is to do the math!
Last autumn, on October 9, 2023, the electronics retailer Best Buy announced (seehttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231009526652/en/Best-Buy-to-Sell-Continuous-Glucose-Monitoring-Systems/ for the press release) that it had started a mail order business called "Best Buy Health"https://wellness.bestbuyhealth.com/ which it said would sell CGM sensors among other products. Best Buy Health aims to sell more than just CGM sensors. Its LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-buy-health/ describes the business this way:" Best Buy Health aims to enrich and save lives through technology and meaningful connections. ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 9, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 2024 Best Buy Best Buy Health Costco Source Type: blogs
Patient Advocates Argue Exercising Bayh-Dole " March-In " Rights Reasonable to Ensure Ongoing Supply of an Insulin Novo Nordisk Intends to Discontinue
Back in 2016 (when President Obama was still in office), the trade group known as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (better known by the acronym PhRMA) claimed in an organization-published white paper (seehttps://web.archive.org/web/20161022175500/https://phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/bayh-dole-act-white-paper-summary.pdf for an archived copy of that paper from PhRMA; note that it has since been removed from PhRMA ' s website, hence I found a copy on the Internet Archive) that championed the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. Understand that what PhRMA really wants to prevent a particular provision...
Source: Scott's Web Log - February 11, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: march-in rights 2024 Alliance to Protect Insulin Choice APIC Bayh-Dole insulin detemir Levemir Novo Nordisk Source Type: blogs
The Business Case for a Biosimilar Company to Bring a Copy of Levemir to Market
My readers may recall that in November 2023, I blogged that Novo Nordisk announced it plans to retire (stop making) its first " Lantus killer " known as Levemir (insulin detemir injection) in the U.S. in 2024 (catch my post at https://blog.sstrumello.com/2023/11/novo-nordisk-to-discontinue-levemir-in.html for more). At the time I learned of the announcement, I was on vacation in Amsterdam, so I just made a note of the development and blogged about it a few weeks later upon my return.Like other patients my age, I have endured the company ' s previous insulin " retirements " . Novo Nordisk ' s time-frame for withdr...
Source: Scott's Web Log - January 25, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2024 Biosimilar Levemir Novo Nordisk PBM Source Type: blogs
Consider Bypassing Your Health Insurance to Afford Certain Type 1 Diabetes-Related Medicines and Supplies
Since it ' s January (a new year), and about half of all Americans with employer-sponsored healthcare insurance plans have some deductibles to satisfy before their healthcare insurance really kicks-in to cover much of anything and deductibles reset on January 1, I thought perhaps this might be a good time to write about my own experience with high-deductible insurance plans and some intelligent work-arounds which I ' ve discovered to deal with those. Who knows? You might (as I did) find you actually like using a particular brand or variety of insulin which is not " preferred " by your insurance ' s PBM, or maybe you f...
Source: Scott's Web Log - January 11, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: type 1 diabetes 2024 bypass insurance manufacturer coupons PBM ' PBMs unbranded insulin Source Type: blogs
Abbott Gets Real About " Formulary Exclusions " Bankrolled by Rival Dexcom in the U.S.
My followers may recall that I ' ve written not-so-kind blog posts about how Dexcom paying legally-exempted rebate kickbacks (seehttps://blog.sstrumello.com/2023/06/dexcom-pays-pbms-kickbacks-to-exclude.html for one such blog post) to major Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) contingent upon " formulary exclusions of less costly rival continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems such as Abbott Freestyle Libre. The retail prices for both CGM sensor brands are remarkably close (ranging from $57.33/sensor to $61.28/sensor). However, the cost computation is not based on the cost per sensor, but must be computed on a cost per ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - December 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Abbott Freestyle Libre 3 coupons Dexcom PBM PBMs Source Type: blogs
Novo Nordisk to Discontinue Levemir in 2024
Upgrade to Patent-Protected Tresiba — or else!On Wednesday, November 8, 2023, Novo Nordisk announced that it would discontinue its long-acting insulin Levemir (insulin detemir injection) in the United States, citing manufacturing constraints, reduced patient access and available alternatives. The company ' s official statement (seehttps://www.novomedlink.com/diabetes/products/treatments/levemir.html) said: " We will continue to provide Levemir FlexPen and Levemir vials to wholesalers while supplies last, up to the discontinuation dates, but supply disruptions should be expected. "It added further: " Levemir FlexPen,...
Source: Scott's Web Log - November 29, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 basal insulin diatribe discontinue insulin detemir Levemir Novo Nordisk Source Type: blogs
Your Insulin of the Future Could Be " Made in China " if Big PBMs Have a Say in the Matter
Back on June 16, 2022, I published an article on LinkedIn entitled "How the Civica Insulin Announcement May Be Disruptive to the PBM Kickback Scheme" (see the article athttps://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-civica-insulin-announcement-may-disruptive-pbm-scheme-strumello/ if you wish to read it) which predicted that a growing number of insulin biosimilars whose active pharmaceutical ingredients (API ' s) are cultured in offshore laboratories are forecast to hit the U.S. market in the next few years. According to the FDA and the individual companies whom I also follow on LinkedIn, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) typ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - October 15, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Congress insulin insulin prices lawmakers PBM Pharmacy Benefit Managers Source Type: blogs
Follow me on Meta Threads Under User-Name " sstrumello1 " !
I was kind of hoping it wouldn ' t come to this, but it now seems inevitable. Twitter/X has become unsustainable as a viable social platform, so I will (eventually) be migrating to the newer rival run by Meta (fka Facebook). Recall that in August 2023, sensing that Twitter under Elon Musk ' s ownership was would die as a social platform because the owner was clueless about running a social platform, rival Meta stepped in to fill the void with a new application it calls Threadshttps://www.threads.net/. I know about Jack Dorsey ' s BlueSky, but that new social platform still has some serious accessibility issues right n...
Source: Scott's Web Log - October 10, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Diabetes Instagram Meta Threads Twitter Source Type: blogs
Another Three Biosimilar Insulins Planned from Meitheal Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
On September 21, 2023, Chicago-basedMeitheal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (which is a subsidiary of a Chinese parent company named Nanjing King-Friend Biochemical Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) announced an exclusive commercial licensing agreement with a different Chinese company known asTonghua Dongbao Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. with intent to sell three insulin biosimilars in the U.S. market. The company press release can be seen athttps://www.meithealpharma.com/news/61 while the pharmaceutical industry trade press covered the story athttps://www.thepharmaletter.com/article/licensing-deal-to-bring-three-new...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 30, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Biosimilar insulin Meitheal Pharmaceuticals Source Type: blogs
Abbott Acquires Bigfoot Biomedical. Unity has a new home. Some Bigfoot employees might not like it.
In mid-September 2023, the medical technology startup known as Bigfoot Biomedical, reached a definitive agreement to be acquired by Abbott Laboratories (see the official press release athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/abbott-to-acquire-bigfoot-biomedical-furthering-efforts-to-develop-personalized-connected-solutions-for-people-with-diabetes-301918254.html for details). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Bigfoot ' s CEO Was Fired from JDRFSome people with diabetes might recall that Bigfoot Biomedical was co-founded by Jeffrey Brewer, whose previous job was as CEO of the JDRF. But Mr. Brewer was sh...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 20, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Abbott Bigfoot Biomedical Bigfoot Unity Dexcom FTC Source Type: blogs
Glooko Solicitation: What's in it for me?
This morning, I received a peculiar email. The email was from my endocrinologist ' s office (well, sort of, it was actually sent fromGlooko). The subject line said " New York Presbyterian Medical Group created a Glooko account for your diabetes data " . I was actually a little creeped-out by it, but because I had a very vague idea of what Glooko actually was, I did not instantly delete it. Still, I have no connection to Glooko (in fact, I have never once given the company my email address, nor have I ever asked them for more information, which means they attained it from my endocrinologist ' s office).Some of the issu...
Source: Scott's Web Log - September 19, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Glooko solicitation Source Type: blogs
