By Jamie Oldani, director of state government affairs, Eli Lilly and Company
At Lilly, our purpose is to create medicines that make life better for people. In the past year, the role of innovative biopharmaceutical companies like Lilly has probably never been more important.
Early in the pandemic, Lilly quickly partnered with biotech companies, governments and research institutions to develop antibody treatments to attack COVID-19 – because it was the right thing to do.
Everyone knows about vaccines—those are critical because they help people before they get COVID-19. But antibodies are designed to help people after they’re infected. In Illinois, COVID-19 is still generating about 1,700 daily new cases, keeping roughly 1,200 people hospitalized and killing nearly 40 each day. So there remains a need for therapies that could help people fight off infection.
Scientists have been studying antibodies as treatments for other viruses, such as HIV, since the 1990s. Lilly has been working on antibodies for two decades—experience we put to work to try to find therapies for COVID-19. We’ve now tested our COVID-19 antibodies in thousands of patients. You can read more about Lilly’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic here.
Of course we need innovation not just to make new medicines, but also to make them affordable to patients. We believe cost shouldn’t be a barrier to access.
That’s true for our COVID-19 antibody therapies authorized under emergency use. Our goal is zero out-of-pocket expenses, wherever possible, for any patient receiving a Lilly COVID-19 antibody treatment. For instance, the U.S. government has committed that patients will have no out-of-pocket costs for Lilly’s antibody therapy—although health care facilities may charge a fee for the product’s administration.
It’s also true for our other medicines, like insulin. Lilly launched new programs over the past year so that anyone using Lilly insulin – regardless of their insurance status – is now eligible to buy their monthly prescription for $35.
In Illinois, there are 1.3 million people with diabetes—and about one in four use insulin. For those under 65, they can get a monthly prescription of insulin for $35 via the Lilly Insulin Value Program. That program launched in April 2020 and, by the end of last year, it had helped reduce the cost of insulin for 16,000 patients. For seniors, they can get a Lilly insulin prescription for $35 a month by enrolling in a plan participating in the Part D Senior Savings Model, which began in January.
These and other solutions are available through the Lilly Diabetes Solution Center and its web site, insulinaffordability.com. And no matter which company’s insulin people need, they can find help at GetInsulin.org, a new web site launched by Beyond Type 1. It helps connect patients with affordability and assistance programs offered by multiple pharmaceutical companies as well as charitable foundations.
Working together with governments and the kinds of innovative companies that are part of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, we’re committed to bring life-changing medicines at affordable costs to patients in need.