What is behind the insulin shortage in the US?

Pharmaceutical companies are slashing insulin production in favour of more lucrative weight-loss drugs.

Skye Murphy, who is 22 years old, has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 14. In the past month, she learned that there would be a 30-to-60-day delay in receiving her medication Humalog, an insulin drug made by Eli Lilly.

While announcing a shortage in March, Eli Lilly said several key insulin medications would be out of stock for several weeks, which, as reported by CNN, was because of a “brief delay in manufacturing”. The company has since scrubbed details on the shortage from the news release.

More than 38.4 million people in the United States have diabetes and rely on insulin for their survival. In context, that is more than the population of Tokyo, one of the world’s most populous cities.

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly is one of three pharmaceutical companies that control the global insulin market. It competes with France’s Sanofi and Denmark’s Novo Nordisk. But Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are of particular note. The two companies control 75 percent of the global market – and both have insulin shortages impacting people who rely on the medication.

That includes Murphy. She is down to her last vial and is having to ration her dosages just in case she can’t find a refill. She spent nearly a day calling pharmacies all over the Chicago metro area where she lives to find a dose, but has yet to locate one.