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100 years ago today a 14 year old boy dying of diabetes in Toronto General Hospital was given the first insulin injection. Leonard Thompson went on to live 13 more years. The discovery of insulin was made by Frederick Banting and Charles Best at the University of Toronto and they shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery.
Millions of lives have been saved since then and we probably all know people who would not survive without the life-saving treatment.
Banting sold the patent to the University for $1 and the UofT gave it freely to drug companies to manufacture. Since then pharmaceutical companies have distributed insulin and in recent years have raised prices substantially. Since 2014 the price per unit has tripled in the US. Generic versions aren't available in the US as companies make incremental improvements and changes to protect their market.
Without access to generic versions or national purchasing Americans are gouged and some can't afford to take full doses resulting in organ damage, blindness and death.
Here's a good example of costs/country. Costs are patient expenditure dollars/ml:
Insulin 100 - University of Toronto
Millions of lives have been saved since then and we probably all know people who would not survive without the life-saving treatment.
Banting sold the patent to the University for $1 and the UofT gave it freely to drug companies to manufacture. Since then pharmaceutical companies have distributed insulin and in recent years have raised prices substantially. Since 2014 the price per unit has tripled in the US. Generic versions aren't available in the US as companies make incremental improvements and changes to protect their market.
Without access to generic versions or national purchasing Americans are gouged and some can't afford to take full doses resulting in organ damage, blindness and death.
Here's a good example of costs/country. Costs are patient expenditure dollars/ml:
Humalog (Rapid-Acting Insulin)
- United States: $13.47
- Canada: $3.16
- Japan: $2.00
- France, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal: $0.00
Insulin 100 - University of Toronto