Nearly seven million Americans suffering from diabetes need insulin to live. But a cartel of drug companies who control the production of insulin — Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk – have made the life-saving drug criminally expensive by colluding with each other to hike prices in lockstep, over and over and over, for years.

On March 18th at 12:30pm, the American Economic Liberties Project and the Investigate Insulin Now campaign hosted a discussion focused on the dangerous impacts of the insulin cartel, racial inequities in insulin access, and what Congress and the new Biden administration must do to hold these corporations accountable and address concentration in this critical industry.

For more information, check out the campaign at InvestigateInsulinNow.com.

Welcome: 

Sarah Miller, Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project

Opening Remarks:

Congresswoman Katie Porter (CA-45), member of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy

Remarks:

Matt Dinger, Patient, Insulin Advocate, and Board Member at T1International

Panel Discussion: 

Maurice BP-Weeks, Co-Executive Director of Action Center on Race and the Economy

Laura Marston, Attorney and Insulin Advocate

Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works

Tahir Amin, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of I-MAK 

Moderated by Olivia Webb, Policy Analyst at the American Economic Liberties Project 

Closing Remarks:

Cameron J. Hall, Patient, Insulin Advocate and Board Member at T1International

More about the Investigate Insulin Now Campaign:

The Investigate Insulin Now campaign is a coalition of progressive organizations and prominent insulin advocates demanding the FTC to investigate the consolidated and cartelized insulin industry. Signatories include: Action Center on Race and the Economy, I-MAK, Progressive Doctors, Lower Drug Prices Now, Public Citizen, Social Security Works, Demand Progress Education Fund, Center for Popular Democracy, Patients for Affordable Drugs, T1International, In the Public Interest, Open Markets Institute, Revolving Door Project, The Democracy Collaborative, Health Global Access Project, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, Liberation in a Generation, The Insulin Initiative, and Community Change.

Additional Resources: 

Investigate Insulin Now’s letter to the FTC

“Poi$on: How Big Pharma’s Racist Price Gouging Kills Black and Brown Folks,” ACRE, 2020

“Killer Profits: How Big Pharma Takeovers Destroy Innovation and Harm Patients,” Congresswoman Katie Porter, 2021