Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Call your congresscritter. unfortunately not likely to do anything as long as the big pharma lobby remains as powerful as it is
What else is one to do?
Take to the streets, like the French do?
Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
21–30 of 392 posts
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not branding, the newer insulin is significantly different and better for almost every patient. https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/ It's likely not what your doctor prescribed, it doesn't last as long, it requires you (or your young children) to eat on a very specific schedule, it can't be used with an insulin pen or insulin pump, it's just all around a worse and less effective treatment.
When were these newer insulins invented? Are they a recent thing? Was it the case that twenty years ago, "Walmart" insulin was the only insulin?
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#23Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#24Insulin is a solved problem, in first-world countries the sale price is fixed and there's public healthcare. But in America you are supposed to take "personal responsibility" for your own health and biohack your way ouf of type 1 diabetes?! Srsly? This s a political, not a scientific problem. Call your congresscritter.
The production cost of insulin is incredibly low. The pricing on it in the United States is systematic criminal manslaughter.
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#25This is bogus. Wal-mart sells insulin for $24.88 a vial without prescription currently. It's only the newer 'guchi' insulin brands that are crazy expensive. Stuff from 1996 that is compared to in this article is actually cheaper than it was in 1996 (adjusted for inflation).
A friend had insurance problems for years and often had to use Walmart insulin instead. He's now going blind, and his doctors suspect that's why.
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#26This is bogus. Wal-mart sells insulin for $24.88 a vial without prescription currently. It's only the newer 'guchi' insulin brands that are crazy expensive. Stuff from 1996 that is compared to in this article is actually cheaper than it was in 1996 (adjusted for inflation).
It's not branding, the newer insulin is significantly different and better for almost every patient. https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/ It's likely not what your doctor prescribed, it doesn't last as long, it requires you (or your young children) to eat on a very specific schedule, it can't be used with an insulin pen or insulin pump, it's just all around a worse and less effective treatment.
Seems like everything is working as intended? A corporation invests money to develop a better product, and the government gives them a 20 year monopoly on it so they charge a premium and recoup their investment. As a patient if you want to pay the premium for it, you can get the better product, otherwise you can still stick with whatever walmart's selling. It's worse, but it's not any worse than what you'd had if the company didn't come along and invented the better product.
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#27This is bogus. Wal-mart sells insulin for $24.88 a vial without prescription currently. It's only the newer 'guchi' insulin brands that are crazy expensive. Stuff from 1996 that is compared to in this article is actually cheaper than it was in 1996 (adjusted for inflation).
This is so incredibly wrong - and trying to claim something you know obviously nothing about is hilarious.
The different between NPH (regular insulin) (maybe R too, not sure??) sold by walmart and Fast Acting insulins (Novolog, Humalog, Apidra) is massive.
Fast acting insulins start working at about in about 30 minutes and "peak" at like 2 hours, and may slowly have some effects for another 1-2 hours.
NPH on the other hand, starts working at ~2 hour mark and continues to work slowly until peaking at like 6 hours and slowly degrades away, that means its in your system for something like 9 hours - trying to meal plan around multiple doses of that is unsafe at best.
R is slightly better but still remains and slowly peaks closer to 4 hours.
These are obviously GREAT IF and only IF you dont have access to fast acting. I applaud Walmart for giving access to these, as they are way better than nothing.
source: Type 1 diabetic
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#28Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#29I really wish this would be a higher priority for the current class of billionaire philanthropists: open source science. Medical research guided by the idea of preventing disease rather than creating expensive life-long treatments, and prioritizing the diseases that cause the most amount of suffering rather than present the best opportunity for profit. And not just medicine, but just about any industry could benefit.
Wall Street Smart Genius types have long held that curing disease is bad business, managing symptoms over the entire lifetime allows them to extract more capital out of the cattle.
So, if you're looking to cure something you're going to struggle to find funding.
Don't worry though, the economy will survive.
Re: Biohackers take aim at big pharma’s stranglehold on insulin
#30Some considerations on manufacturing — there’s a variety of product quality steps necessary to release batches of medicine. The FDA mandates this as part of GMP regulations. These steps help ensure things like:
* How do I know that every vial has the same concentration of insulin each time? That is to say 1 unit from a vial today and 1 unit from another vial is going to have the same dosing.
* How do I know the insulin is purified? If there’s any host cell protein in the vial, that could be immunogenic and cause bad side effects.
* How do I know that the formulation of insulin in the vial won’t degrade on me at whatever storage condition is stated?
I realize that these tests make up only a small fraction of the price, but there’s a lot of value to purchasing medicine from regulated sources. I’m not against upstart competition against big pharma, but I worry that you might literally kill someone if you don’t include these product quality steps in your process.