NEW YORK, March 17 — Sanofi SA said yesterday it will cut US list prices for its most-prescribed insulin product, Lantus, by 78 per cent starting next year after similar moves by rivals Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and Co.

The French drugmaker will also extend its US$35 (RM157.34) out-of-pocket pricing programme to all patients with commercial insurance using Lantus.

The move comes as US President Joe Biden has pushed to extend to most Americans the US$35 cap on out-of-pocket insulin costs made available to Medicare recipients by the Inflation Reduction Act.

In addition to Lantus, Sanofi said it will cut by 70 per cent the list price for its fast-acting insulin, Apidra.

Sanofi said it already offered a lower priced version of Lantus but that it had not been taken up widely by insurance programmes.

The branded list price of Lantus is US$438.07 for the pre-filled pens and US$292.07 for a 10 ml vial. Those would come down to US$96 and US$64, respectively.

The company said it has a 40 per cent share of the US long-acting insulin market and a 4 per cent share of the rapid-acting market.

About 8.4 million of the 37 million people with diabetes in the US use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Rival Novo Nordisk on Tuesday said it would cut US list prices for several insulin products by up to 75 per cent next year. That followed Lilly’s March 2 decision to cut list prices by 70 per cent for Humalog and Humulin, its most commonly prescribed insulin products.

Most Americans with insurance do not regularly pay list price for insulin, but they may have an insurance co-pay based on the drug’s list price or pay full price up to a certain amount of money spent.

Uninsured people often have to pay the full list price, forcing many patients to ration or skip doses. The companies also offer savings programmes outside of insurance.

The price cuts will allow Sanofi, Novo and Lilly, which combined control about 90 per cent of the US insulin market, to avoid paying substantial rebates to the US government Medicaid programme in 2024.

Under a US law, drug companies are required to rebate the Medicaid programme if annual price increases on medicines outpace inflation. The law capped the maximum payments at the price of the drug, but that cap will be removed in January of 2024.

"After the price drop, Sanofi will actually make money off Lantus in Medicaid, when at current prices, it would have had to pay Medicaid,” said Dr Inmaculada Hernandez, a drug pricing expert and associate professor at the University of California at San Diego. — Reuters