Baltimore sues Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk over insulin price ‘gouging’

The city of Baltimore is suing Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and CVS Caremark, alleging that the companies harmed the city and its citizens by conspiring to inflate the price of insulin. Mayor Brandon Scott and the Baltimore City Council filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Maryland.

The plaintiffs allege that the increased prices make insurance more expensive and put a strain on emergency services and medical facilities because people were rationing their medications.

“What the mayor is doing is saying we got to have some of that money back, because we’ve been gouged and the people of Baltimore City need this redress,” said Vincent DeMarco, president of Maryland Healthcare for All. “Eli Lilly and these other drug corporations have been gouging local governments, state governments, insurers and average Americans for so long. The price of a vial of insulin went from 20 bucks to 300 bucks from 1999 to 2016. And in that time, it didn’t cost them any more to make it. They were just gouging us for profits and high salaries of their executives.”

According to the lawsuit, Baltimore offers a self-funded insurance plan to more than 60,000 employees, retirees and their dependents. Because the plan is self-funded, the city, rather than a third-party insurer, pays for a portion of its beneficiaries’ prescription drugs. Between January and October 2023, the suit said, the city paid more than $11 million for diabetes medications. The suit cites Baltimore’s high diabetes rate as reason for urgency, noting that 13% of city residents are diagnosed with the chronic condition, compared to 10% of the population nationwide.

The defendants promised to fight the allegations:

• Allison Schneider, a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, described the claims in the lawsuit as “without merit” and said the company planned to vigorously defend itself against them. Novo Nordisk is trying to make insulin more affordable for patients, she said, citing an option called MyInsulinRx that costs $35.
• Antoinette Forbes of Eli Lilly said the average monthly out-of-pocket cost for Lilly insulin is $20.48, that the company cut insulin prices by 70% and that it automatically caps monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35 or less wherever possible.
• Mike DeAngelis of CVS said pharmaceutical companies alone are responsible for the prices they set in the marketplace for the products they manufacture. “Nothing in our agreements prevents drug manufacturers from lowering the prices of their insulin products, and we would welcome such an action,” he said. “Allegations that we play any role in determining the prices charged by manufacturers for their products are false, and we intend to vigorously defend against this baseless suit.”

Related: Eli Lilly agrees to $13.5M settlement in insulin lawsuit, agrees to $35 price cap

Last month, Eli Lilly settled a lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota. It agreed to provide its insulin products at $35 per month to Minnesota residents with or without insurance for the next five years. Last May, it reached a settlement with insulin buyers following six years of litigation. The company agreed to pay a $13.5 million settlement and continue its cap on out-of-pocket costs for four years.