Birmingham sues drug companies, says city hurt by ‘insulin pricing scheme’

Birmingham is suing drug manufacturers and health companies, alleging they worked together to establish an “insulin pricing scheme” and inflate the cost of life-saving medicine.

The lawsuit, filed last week, says the city paid an estimated $5.5 million for insulin and diabetes medication from 2009-2021 for employee health benefits. The suit says insulin vials cost as little as $2 to produce, were priced at $20 per vial in the 1990s, and “now range in price from $300 to over $700.”

The city accuses a number of defendants, from insulin manufacturers, like Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, to the companies that manage pharmacy benefits, including CVS Health and Express Scripts, of engineering the price of medications to increase their profits - prices that “reflect neither the manufacturers actual cost to produce the drugs nor the fair market value.”

In 2018, the price per vial of insulin in the United States was $98.70, compared to $9 in France, $12 in Canada, and less than $7 in Australia.

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