Sanofi to­day joined with the oth­er two in­sulin jug­ger­nauts in the US to low­er the price of its best-sell­ing in­sulin prod­uct, Lan­tus (in­sulin glargine), by 78% and set a $35 cap on out-of-pock­et costs for Lan­tus for all pa­tients with com­mer­cial in­sur­ance. The price shifts will be­gin in Jan­u­ary 2024.

The shift from Sanofi fol­lows No­vo Nordisk’s up to 75% price cuts for its in­sulins, be­gin­ning in 2024, and Eli Lil­ly’s sim­i­lar 70% dis­count on its pop­u­lar Hu­ma­log in­sulin prod­uct, which will oc­cur in the fourth quar­ter of this year.

Olivi­er Bogillot

The three up­dates all take ef­fect af­ter the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment low­ered OOP costs to $35 per month for every­one on Medicare, and as an up­com­ing ma­jor change in Med­ic­aid pol­i­cy would leave these com­pa­nies and po­ten­tial­ly oth­ers on the hook for larg­er re­bates, cre­at­ing an in­cen­tive for com­pa­nies to watch their price in­creas­es.

“We launched our un­brand­ed bi­o­log­ic for Lan­tus at 60 per­cent less than the Lan­tus list price in June 2022 but, de­spite this pi­o­neer­ing low-price ap­proach, the health sys­tem was un­able to take ad­van­tage of it due to its in­her­ent struc­tur­al chal­lenges,” Olivi­er Bogillot, head of Sanofi’s US gen­er­al med­i­cines, said in a state­ment. “We are pleased to see oth­ers join our ef­forts to help pa­tients as we now ac­cel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion of the U.S. in­sulin mar­ket.”

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.

Microcap biotech Seelos Therapeutics is halting enrollment of its study in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (also known as Machado-Joseph disease) because of “financial considerations,” and in order to focus on other studies, the company said today, adding that the pause would be temporary.

The study will continue with the patients who have already enrolled, and the data from them will be used to decide whether to continue enrolling others in the future.