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A comment on California to begin selling affordable state-branded insulin beginning next year. Parent comment

Re:California to begin selling affordable state-branded insu... by jrflowers on Thursday October 16, 2025 @06:53PM (#45611662)
> The long-acting and ultra-fast formulations people actually use when given a choice.

The patent for insulin glargine (Lantus) and insulin aspart (NovoLog) expired over a decade ago, though kind of amusingly Sanofi holds an active patent on “putting more Lantus in a vial than you usually would”

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9345750B2/en

I could be wrong but off the top of my head the only insulin I can think of that’s probably under patent is Afrezza, which is cool as hell because it’s inhalable and ultra-quick

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Re:California to begin selling affordable state-branded insu... by JumpCrisscross on Thursday October 16, 2025 @07:08PM (#45611756)
It’s less the patent per se than the production cost. A lot of cost estimates use the 1980s Humalin or whatnot as their baseline. I’m not diabetic. But everyone I know who is doesn’t like that one. So we need to know the cost for the medicines folks are actually taking.
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Re:California to begin selling affordable state-branded insu... by jrflowers on Thursday October 16, 2025 @07:42PM (#45611991)
It looks like the cost to manufacture modern biosimilars could be around $2-6 per vial.

https://gh.bmj.com/content/3/5/e000850

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Re:California to begin selling affordable state-branded insu... by s1artibartfast on Friday October 17, 2025 @11:37AM (#45618001)
Cost to manufacture obviously isnt the only factor.
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