> decentralizing and downscaling production

I think you are severely underestimating what it takes to produce a protein drug like insulin. Getting the bug to make it is just the first step. Then next step is purifying it. Which takes SO much water, and salts, and specialized equipment (resins, columns, high-pressure apparatus). A decentralized insulin production scheme is going to be VERY ecologically destructive.

It's not that bad ecologically, but I'm not getting why these people are reinventing the wheel.

Buying out a patent and properly documenting it should be doable.

The people plugged into the solar utility co-op on Kaua'i actually end up having a smaller carbon footprint than those generating solar power off the grid.

Yes, but what about economies or scale? And the the production is already decentralized. I guess there’s more than one plant in the US.

Those econmies of scale are simply driving up profits for an oligopoly that uses IP laws and acquisitions to extract maximum value from sick people.

We could revoke the IP and thus force these companies to compete on price... but that hasn't happened. Thus the only solution that is making any progress is circumventing the IP and developing an open process.

It's unclear to me if the lack of competition is due to IP laws. For all I know, they've been coasting with the same production methods for 20+ years (the article mentions that insulin was relatively cheap in 2002). With such large profit margins there wouldn't be much incentive to improve anything.

I don't know the exact details and I could be wrong, but my understanding is:

There is IP around the production process (specifically the genetic strain of e-coli). Because the production process is biological, generics produced with a different process are not automatically approved by the FDA and have to undergo an expensive approval process. Thus the goal here is to devolop a process with open IP and get that process approved.

What IP though? Humalog is off patent. It now appears to be just red-tape or collusiom.

The problem is that patent system is a joke, and the description is likely broken (or incomplete) enough so that even a bunch of experts will have to experiment with the process to decrypt it.

You really need to buy out trade secrets of this particular brand.

There is one plant for each big pharma. Eli lilly is in indianapolis. https://www.industryweek.com/expansion-management/strategic-... Novo Nordisk in Raleigh. https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/projects/novonordi...

This is not really decentralized and is really risky, for obvious reason. https://www.ibj.com/articles/eli-lilly-asking-employees-to-w...