SAN DIEGO — California is taking legal aim at the skyrocketing cost of insulin, accusing pharmaceutical companies of illegally inflating the price of this life-saving drug.
Currently, more than three million Californians -- over 10% of the state's population -- suffer from diabetes, many of whom struggle to pay for their insulin.
This lawsuit by the California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office targets the nation's three largest insulin manufacturers, which produce 90% of the insulin supply worldwide. Here in the United States, though, insulin costs ten times more than it does in other countries.
"Many of my colleagues or peers have to go to Mexico or Canada to get much more affordable insulin," said Chris Noble, organizing director for Health Access California, the state's health advocacy coalition. "That's just not a functioning health care system."
Noble has been living with Type 1 diabetes for nearly three decades. In 1995, a vial of life-saving insulin cost $25 which, as a young boy, he said would last him a month.
"Now that same exact vial of insulin is well over $300," he told CBS 8.
As an adult, that vial of insulin lasts him less than two weeks.
"Every two weeks I have to pay my 'living rent' of $300 for this life-saving medicine." He added, "And some folks actually have to take two or three types of insulin during that time frame as well, so it can easily get into the thousands of dollars a month."
Noble noted that he is fortunate that he has insurance.
For hundreds of thousands of diabetic Californians dependent on insulin to survive, that is not the case.
"We are going to level the playing field," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta, "And we're going to make this life-saving drug more affordable."
Bonta is now suing the nation's top insulin manufacturers, along with big pharmacy benefit managers, accusing them of illegally inflating the price of insulin, aiming through this suit to lower the drug's cost and also get restitution for patients that have overpaid for insulin for decades.
"Who suffers the most for these unscrupulous business practices," Bonta added, "People from low-income households, communities of color, working families struggling to make ends meet."
Several of the companies named in the suit deny the allegations, countering that the consumer price of insulin is already declining.
California is also investing $100 million into a plan to manufacture its own supply of insulin and sell it at a much cheaper price.
It's not clear exactly when that insulin production by the state will begin.
However, starting this year on a nationwide level, the price of insulin will be capped at $35 a month for seniors 65 years and over on Medicare.
WATCH RELATED: How California's low cost insulin could pay itself back in more ways than one (July 2022).