Are Brand Name Insulins Worth the Price?

If you have insurance, I’m sure you are familiar with having to change your insulin to whatever brand is now “cheaper”. If you don’t have insurance and need insulin, it is really expensive. Why is that, since insulin has been around for 100 years??

Well, the early and cheap insulins come in 2 forms, one that acts within a few minutes, and lasts about an hour, and one that acts within about half an hour and lasts about 12 hours. The newer fancy ones either last all day or are ultra-rapid acting.

Here’s the interesting news. They recently did a large study comparing people who took Lantus and Levemir (long-acting insulins) with people who took NPH (the cheap generic twice a day insulin) and found that people taking insulin twice a day with the cheaper brand, actually had BETTER sugars than those taking the once-a-day expensive insulin. They even had fewer episodes of hypoglycemia, or too low blood sugar. The difference in price is about $30 for the cheap version, and $300 for the expensive version. Which do you want to take??

One different thing about the medical practice at Whole Family Medical Care, is that we do not have pharmaceutical sales representatives come into our office. I have less outside influence over what I prescribe and instead can better judge what medications are best for patients on their merits and studies showing what they can do, rather than drug company sponsored information.