INSULIN is bloody cheap. You want the old bovine insulin in common use 15 years ago, and still in use in much of the world? You can get a bucket of it for ~$200.

Re-inventing insulin the way people want it to work:

1) adaptive. Currently means combining making minute quantities work perfectly, but slowly, which is, of course, a total contradiction.

2) VERY long lasting (which is of course also a total contradiction because the dose has to vary)

3) Keep developing this further, oral application, but at some point totally adaptive without an implant would be excellent.

4) without using animals, or even animal cells (even though that doesn't really matter)

5) oh and without using cancerous cells, which is the other trick we know

6) so in essence using the newest, most expensive, most patented trick we know, "yeast expression"

7) using the most expensive protein purification tricks we know

THAT is expensive. And, uh, well of course it is. Now, I get it, the best treatment is the best treatment and the most expensive one, and everyone should get it, and of course doctors will advise the most expensive one, for good reason. But there's currently various compromises available too.