Lilly caps cost of insulin at $35 a month, bringing relief for Hoosiers
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A lot of Hoosiers in Marion County are celebrating the news of the pharmaceutical company cutting its insulin prices.
“It was really being priced out for people who need that life saving medication insulin now being able to get it,” the vice president of public policy and engagement at the Indiana Minority Health Coalition, Tony Gillespie, said.
A medication that can cost people hundreds of dollars is now being capped at $35 per month by Eli Lilly and Company, which health care professionals say was needed.
“The insulin that my doctor prescribed it was not affordable, it was not attainable,” Gillespie said.
“It is amazing. I am so happy for those who can now afford insulin care,” Dr. Javier Sevilla-Mártir, a professor at the IU School of Medicine, said.
“It’s a real boost in racial and ethnic minority communities or economically decimated communities whether Black, White, or otherwise,” Gillespie said.
According to the CDC, Black and Hispanic communities are more likely to develop prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.
Gillespie is diabetic and he depends on the life saving medication.
“Even people with insurance, people living with diabetes who had commercial insurance, the copays were extremely expensive and just out of control,” Gillespie said.
He says this new change is a big relief.
“I won’t have to make choices about food or insulin. My insulin is now affordable. So now maybe I can do a better job at my grocery purchases and better job at healthy food access and better job at preparing food,” Gillespie said.
Dr. Javier Sevilla-Mártir says at least half of his patients are diabetic.
He says traditional Hispanic foods make it harder to maintain a healthier diet.
He said, “How many tortillas? And they can’t even remember, but some of them eat, most of them eat more than 10 a day and that’s what they say to me and that’s, ‘Oh my,’ I say, ‘Let’s work on it. Let’s lower it.”
People tell News 8 this is a step forward for people living with diabetes.