A new research has examined why people with diabetes, depending on injections of lifesaving insulin, still don’t have any cheaper generic options for the treatment of their disease.

Dr. Kevin Riggs, a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, a senior study author, said they have asked this question because surprisingly nobody has ever talked about this issue.

The researchers noted that, to a person with no insurance, the cost of insulin runs from $120 to $400 a month. They want that there should be an availability of generic insulin.

In the report, published in March 19 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Riggs and his colleague Dr. Jeremy Greene have described how the unique development of insulin had allowed pharmaceutical companies to continually improve the medication while extending patents for so long. They said generic drugs cannot be made until a patent on a brand-name drug gets expired.

One of the experts, Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the Clinical Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, has pointed out towards the possible repercussions.

Dr. Joel explained, “This is a big issue. Some patients simply cannot afford to pay for the insulin that keeps their blood sugar down, even people who have health insurance”.

He added if the prices of insulin will remain out of reach for some, then the health care system will need to pay more in hospitalizations and treatments for complications that are related to undertreated or untreated diabetes.

According to Dr. Samuel Dagogo-Jack, the president of medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the article by Greene and Riggs is a timely reminder that something is not well in the house of insulin manufacture and supply. He said that everyone involved in the field of diabetes needs to engage to create affordable insulin.