New pill can deliver insulin

URL should probably be the source press release: http://news.mit.edu/2019/pill-deliver-insulin-orally-0207, since techcrunch is just a less detailed summary of that

> Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected into the stomach — which the patient can’t feel, owing to a lack of pain receptors in the stomach. Once the injection has occurred, the needle can break down in the digestive tract.

That's some pretty impressive ingenuity. Also sounds kinda terrifying if the 1.0 has any kind of edge case that involves tearing holes in your stomach lining.

I'm not diabetic, but I still have vivid memories of sitting with my grandmother while she constantly pricked her finger to test blood sugar and jabbing insulin pens into her abdomen. It's always stuck with me as a particularly unpleasant lifestyle to have to endure. Even still, if I were a diabetic I think I'd still be waiting a year or two after the release of something like this to make sure all the kinks have been ironed out ;)

We should be concentrating on biological cures . Not turning us into cyborgs; or finding ways to furnish the executives of pharmaceutical companies homes with the finests of wares. The cost of synthetic insulin is insane , humalin is cheeper but , glucomoters ; pumps cgms , their parts ,accessories are killing me faster then this stupid disease.

Read up on the matter. The culprits are pharmacy benefits managers who push producers to increase list prices while demanding obscene rebates that are never passed on to the consumers. Most producers don’t disclaim the rebates, but Lars Fruegaard (Novos CEO) is on record saying that it increased from 64% to 67% last year. So pharmacy benefits managers are pushing up the list price but less and less is getting through to the producers. The American system is rigged by the middlemen who approach consumers with ownership of “cheap drugs” because of the rebates, while they approach the producers with ownership of the consumers. As an alternative to that system Novo Nordisk is releasing cheaper insulin through a partnership with Walmart where it goes directly to the consumers.

Openness around rebates will be a great first step to help lower prices, but the PBMs have gotten the industry into a reverse price war where everyone is overbidding each other on price in order to provide the larges rebate to PBMs. Something big has to change to revert that cause.

Disclaimer: I work for Novo Nordisk.

Probably not worse than having bigger needles traveling through your skin. But public perception of the device will definately be a large obstacle to overcome if it reaches the market.