California to Begin Selling Affordable State-Branded Insulin Beginning Next Year

My understanding is that there is no way any vial of insulin anywhere, at this point in time, should cost enough to produce for US$35 asking price to be unprofitable. See [1] and [2] for example. This would need to increase with inflation, of course.

Regardless, the bill didn't pass. Arguments like this were probably the reason why.

[1] https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(21)... [2] https://www.medcentral.com/endocrinology/diabetes/the-high-c...

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

It seems like insulin is a lot more affordable there and it's obviously an economically sustainable rate because companies keep selling it to Canada.

How much does it cost in Canada anyways?

It is also worth noting that this week Newsom signed SB 40 0f 2025, which did exactly the same thing in this area as the vetoed SB 90 of 2023, no doubt because the price side was also being adddressed simultaneously, with CalRx insulin to be on available in January when SB 40 goes into effect.