The fa­mil­iar bi­par­ti­san pair of Sens. Su­san Collins (R-ME) and Jeanne Sha­heen (D-NH) un­veiled a bill to­day, which Ma­jor­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said would come for a vote soon, to curb month­ly in­sulin costs to $35.

The duo has been work­ing to get some­thing on in­sulin passed since at least 2019, al­though it’s un­clear if they’ll win over enough Re­pub­li­can sup­port, even as the list prices of in­sulin have con­tin­ued to sky­rock­et.

Schumer on Collins/Sha­heen in­sulin bill: "I will put this bi­par­ti­san leg­is­la­tion on the Sen­ate floor very soon – it ought to be passed ex­pe­di­tious­ly"

— Burgess Everett (@burges­sev) June 22, 2022

The House passed (232-193) the same month­ly cap in March, with just 12 Re­pub­li­cans vot­ing in fa­vor of the mea­sure. While both the Sen­ate and the House bills ef­fec­tive­ly cut what many of those who re­ly on in­sulin to stay alive will pay at the phar­ma­cy counter, it doesn’t hit the prices set by the phar­ma man­u­fac­tur­ers, nor does it help those who are unin­sured. Schumer sim­i­lar­ly said in March that a vote was com­ing soon then.

And some of the biggest play­ers in the in­sulin space on the man­u­fac­tur­ing and de­vel­op­ment side are fine with this bill too.

“We just re­ceived the work­ing draft and will be re­view­ing it this week. But, we are en­cour­aged by the pa­tient-cen­tric lan­guage that is a step in the right di­rec­tion,” an Eli Lil­ly spokesper­son told End­points News this af­ter­noon via email.

Three drug­mak­ers con­trol the more than $20 bil­lion in­sulin mar­ket — Lil­ly, No­vo Nordisk, and Sanofi — which has bal­looned in the US. The cur­rent price of in­sulin in the U.S. is more than 10 times that of 33 oth­er com­pa­ra­ble coun­tries, even as the net price of in­sulin has de­clined in re­cent years. No­vo in 2021 set­tled a suit for $100 mil­lion af­ter be­ing ac­cused of rais­ing the price of its in­sulin drugs 450% above the rate of in­fla­tion.

Those ma­jor dif­fer­ences in list and net price for in­sulin have led the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion to re­cent­ly look in­to PBMs and the way they can dri­ve this spread. But oth­er con­gres­sion­al re­ports have not­ed the lock-step list price in­creas­es among the top three.

Still, any out-of-pock­et sav­ings the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion can forge from in­sulin could be good news at the polls for Biden as more than 37 mil­lion Amer­i­cans live with di­a­betes, in­clud­ing an es­ti­mat­ed one in every three se­niors.

Two weeks ago, Biohaven hit an all-time high in weekly Nurtec prescriptions. CEO Vlad Coric attributes at least some of that success to a new interactive Twitter campaign that encourages patients to free their feed of potential migraine triggers.

Earlier this month, Biohaven in partnership with Twitter launched the #RelieveYourFeed campaign that allows users to customize their app settings based on their migraine triggers.

Over the past few months, oncologists have been talking a lot about the ASCO conference. Not surprising considering its import and the study data presented, but what may be less expected is the second most talked about topic of health equity.

That’s according to data from The Harris Poll and the new expert network the researcher is building out. While the company has been doing deep data dives into specific health issues or conditions for pharma clients, it’s now monitoring influencer networks of therapy area specialists to find out what experts are really thinking about.

Earlier this year, Novartis touted its radioligand as a major piece to counter competition in the cancer space. However, the physical production of its products has had anything but a smooth ride.

In May, Novartis had to suspend production of Lutathera and Pluvicto, its two primary radiotherapies. According to the company, this was done out of an abundance of caution as a result of potential quality issues identified in its manufacturing. The production suspension impacts the commercial and clinical trial supply of the products.

The rise of pharma environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts in the past two years has been meteoric as investors turn their attention to sustainable funding. However, investors aren’t the only ones watching. Patients are beginning to tune into pharmas’ ESG promises too.

Patient advocacy groups familiar with ESG regard it as an important issue and want to be included in helping pharma companies set ESG policies and targets, according to a new report from PatientView. That’s quite different from what the investment community wants across a variety of Gartner’s defined financial, competitive, strategic and perception goals.