Mylan has launched a biosimilar version of Sanofi's best-selling insulin, Lantus, that it says is priced 65 percent lower than comparable insulins.
The biosimilar, called Semglee, costs $147.98 for a pack of five 3-milliliter pens, or $98.65 for a 10-milliliter vial.
Mylan CEO Heather Bresch said Semglee has the "most competitive list price on the market" and is "an important step toward ensuring that those who need insulin are able to access and afford it."
But not all patients with diabetes are expected to benefit financially from Semglee, STAT reported.
"I hate to say it, but [any savings] depends on if and how a patient is insured," Stacie Dusetzina, an associate professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., told STAT. "For patients paying cash today for Lantus, this could save them a lot of money at the pharmacy counter, although the price still may be too high for many uninsured individuals. For patients who have health insurance, how much they save will depend on whether their health plans include Semglee on the formulary or not."
David Kliff, who runs the website Diabetic Investor, told STAT that Semglee doesn't much benefit the roughly 7.4 million Americans who use insulin to treat diabetes.
The patient, he said, "gets nothing out of this deal unless they are cash-paying, and even then it won’t matter much. There are already programs in place for that, plus several states have capped co-payments for insulin. So this helps the payer, hurts insulin companies and means little to the average guy on the street."
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