Slide 1

What does insulin exactly do?

After you eat carbohydrates, they break down into glucose. This is the bodies primary source of
energy. The glucose enters the bloodstream and makes the pancreas respond by releasing insulin.
This then allows glucose to enter body cells.

When there is more glucose entering the bloodstream the insulin levels rise and lots of the glucose is
stored in the liver as glycogen. On the contrary if insulin levels are low the liver releases the stored
glycogen in the form of glucose.

Slide 2

Why is insulin so expensive?

There are 3 big insulin producers in the world Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. In general, every
country has one company to supply insulin for them. This means that these companies are more or
less monopolies and so therefore can set prices however they want. Today, if one of the three raise
their prices so do the other two.

Another reason are patents, this means that new companies can’t enter the market due to rights.
Therefore, as there isn’t much competition there isn’t the urge for the companies to drop their
prices.

American insulin is 28 times more expensive than Turkish insulin.

When insulin was first discovered in 1923 two of the four scientists which helped create it chose to
not be named on the patent as they believed that for many it’s a necessity to survive and so they
shouldn’t be paid for their work in its creation. Without it peoples blood turns into acid, their brains
get confused, their heart rate increases and could potentially lead to a coma or even death.

Slide 3

What’s Analog Insulin?

If a person has diabetes their glucose levels continue to rise even after they’ve eaten because their
body is unable to store the glucose in body cells.

An Analog insulin is designed to copy human insulin. Analog insulin has a slightly altered structure
particularly with its amino acids and that means that it can be absorbed more predictably by fatty
tissue.

Walmart is planning on releasing their own private brand insulin at a 75% lower cost.

In addition to that Walmart already sells $25 insulin but it’s an older version and so is also less
effective. The new insulin will be more expensive at $73 but way more effective.