Diabetes - Lilly's competition with Sanofi

[anonymous]

Lilly's Humalog Junior KwikPen will be available now in U.S. Lilly KwikPen vs. Sanofi Solostar. Which insulin pen is going to win the race?

 

[anonymous]

Lilly's Humalog Junior KwikPen will be available now in U.S. Lilly KwikPen vs. Sanofi Solostar. Which insulin pen is going to win the race?

If Lilly continues to bundle products for distribution through PBMs and competes on price, Lilly will win hands down. Meanwhile, back in Bridgeport, Sanofi figures the margin loss on Solostar will have to be made up by those lazy sales people. Maybe we better restructure them again and put them all on performance plans. Yeah, that the ticket!

 

[anonymous]

Lilly offers better pricing not bundles. No PBM will bundle, it's not worth it plus it's illegal. Every medication and class is looked at individually. Lilly's insulin is "comparable" and costs significantly less. Yes maybe almost at has a tiny advantage but if it saves the insurance compny billions a year guess what, the cheaper one is added to the formulary. These little differences such as .5% extra A1C reduction are not something taken seriously. It's a very shuttle difference and non life threatening to have to choose the more expensive option.

 

[anonymous]

You are half right. Bundling is illegal if both sides participate, but not if one side offers a unilateral rebate. An offer like "if you fill 90% of all insulin scripts with my products next year then I will give you X% rebate in December" is the way the game is played. PBMs live off of those rebates.

Note that the deal is entirely one-sided; there is zero obligation for the PBM to buy any product at all which is what makes it legal. Just try buying Humalog from CVS, Novolog from ExpressScripts, or Lantus from either one and you will see how well the sole source rebate game works.