Strik­ing while the iron is hot, six House De­moc­rats sent a let­ter Thurs­day to the act­ing chair­woman of the FTC (10 days af­ter the FTC said it would crack down on phar­ma merg­ers), call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the po­ten­tial col­lu­sion of in­sulin mar­ket lead­ers Eli Lil­ly, Sanofi and No­vo Nordisk.

Katie Porter

Led by Rep. Katie Porter of Cal­i­for­nia, the let­ter notes that the three com­pa­nies raised the prices of their in­sulins in lock­step, and be­tween 2012 and 2016, the price of in­sulin al­most dou­bled. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the late Rep. Eli­jah Cum­mings of Mary­land sent a let­ter to the FTC rais­ing sim­i­lar charges of col­lu­sion among the same three com­pa­nies in 2016.

“It is a unique­ly Amer­i­can phe­nom­e­non that pa­tients with di­a­betes are reg­u­lar­ly forced to ra­tion in­sulin and risk death,” wrote Porter, along with De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Reps. Lloyd Doggett (TX), Cori Bush (MO), Prami­la Jaya­pal (WA), Pe­ter Welch (VT), and Ro Khan­na (CA).

Last March, the FDA of­fi­cial­ly tran­si­tioned in­sulin prod­ucts from all three com­pa­nies from drugs to bi­o­log­ics, mean­ing com­pe­ti­tion would have to come in the form of biosim­i­lars, or even in­ter­change­able biosim­i­lars, rather than gener­ics.

Scott Got­tlieb

“The tran­si­tion of in­sulin from the drug to the bi­o­log­ics path­way will open up these prod­ucts to biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion,” for­mer FDA com­mis­sion­er Scott Got­tlieb said in April 2019. “We’re al­ready see­ing ro­bust ac­tiv­i­ty among spon­sors seek­ing to bring for­ward biosim­i­lar copies of in­sulin.”

But one year since that tran­si­tion oc­curred, and the fruits of that ac­tiv­i­ty have not trans­lat­ed in­to new in­sulin biosim­i­lars yet.

For now, the House De­moc­rats are call­ing on the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion to do some­thing, say­ing any ac­tion would align with its “com­mit­ment to equal­i­ty” as Black Amer­i­cans are fac­ing an epi­dem­ic of am­pu­ta­tions “large­ly caused by ex­or­bi­tant in­sulin prices,” the De­moc­rats wrote.

“It is clear that the in­sulin mar­ket is bro­ken, and we be­lieve that an FTC in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­ter­ven­tion is long over­due,” they added.

Just 3 com­pa­nies con­trol near­ly all of our in­sulin sup­ply: Eli Lil­ly, Sanofi, and No­vo Nordisk. Shock­er: it turns out they raise prices in tan­dem—at least 13x in 10 years—while pa­tients are ra­tioning or starv­ing them­selves to try to cut costs. I want an­swers. pic.twit­ter.com/AtkH3OonTs

— Rep. Katie Porter (@Rep­KatiePorter) March 26, 2021

As the ink dries on CSL’s $11.7 billion Vifor buyout, the company posted a dip in profits, due in part to a drop in plasma donations amid the pandemic.

However, CEO Paul Perreault assured investors and analysts on the full-year call that the team has left “no stone unturned” when assessing options to grow plasma volumes. The chief executive also spelled out positive results for the company’s monoclonal antibody garadacimab in hereditary angioedema (HAE), though he isn’t revealing the exact numbers just yet.

Irish drugmaker Endo International is entering into bankruptcy as it faces the weight of serious litigation related to its involvement in the opioid epidemic in the US.

The company has filed Chapter 11 proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, with the company expected to file recognition proceedings in Canada, the UK and Australia. The company’s bankruptcy filing showed the company had assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion.

GSK has landed a new first from UNICEF — the first-ever contract for malaria vaccines, worth up to $170 million for 18 million vaccine doses distributed over the next three years.

The vaccine, known as Mosquirix or RTS,S, won WHO’s backing last October after a controversial start, but UNICEF said these doses will potentially save thousands of lives every year.

“We hope this is just the beginning,” Etleva Kadilli, director of UNICEF’s supply division, said. “Continued innovation is needed to develop new and next-generation vaccines to increase available supply, and enable a healthier vaccine market. This is a giant step forward in our collective efforts to save children’s lives and reduce the burden of malaria as part of wider malaria prevention and control programmes.”

While Middletown, Delaware’s main claim to fame was the site location for the film the Dead Poets Society, the city will soon play host to a massive manufacturing outfit.

WuXi AppTec’s contract research and manufacturing subsidiary WuXi STA, has broken ground on a 190-acre manufacturing campus in Middletown.

According to the company, this site will be WuXi’s second facility in the US, and it will create around 500 full-time jobs by 2026, but there are plans to kick off operations in 2025.