California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a new contract with nonprofit drugmaker Civica Rx, a move that brings the state one step closer to creating its own line of insulin to bring down the cost of the drug.
Once the medicines are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Newsom said at a press conference on Saturday, Civica — under the 10-year agreement with the state worth $50 million — will start making the new CalRx insulins later this year.
The contract covers three forms of insulin — glargine, lispro and aspart. Civica expects them to be interchangeable with popular brand-name insulins: Sanofi’s Lantus, Eli Lilly’s Humalog and Novo Nordisk’s Novolog, respectively.
The state-label insulins
will cost no more than $30
per 10 milliliter vial, and no more than $55 for a box of five pre-filled pen cartridges — for both insured and uninsured patients. The medicines will be
available nationwide
, the governor’s office said.
“This is a big deal, folks,” the governor said. “This is not happening anywhere else in the United States.”
A 10 milliliter vial of insulin can cost as much as $300, Newsom said. Under the new contract, patients who pay out of pocket for insulin could save up to $4,000 per year. The federal government this year put a
$35 monthly cap on out-of-pocket costs on insulin
for certain Medicare enrollees, including senior citizens.
Advocates have pushed for years to make insulin more affordable. According to a report published last year in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine,
1 in 6 Americans with diabetes
who use insulin said the cost of the drug forces them to ration their supply.
“This is an extraordinary move in the…
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