Study shows how drug manufacturers use FDA, patent strategies to keep insulin prices high

Over the last four decades, insulin manufacturers have extended their periods of market exclusivity on brand-name insulin products by employing several strategies, including filing additional patents on their products after FDA approval and obtaining many patents on delivery devices for their insulin products. That is the conclusion of a new analysis of FDA and patent records carried out by William Feldman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, U.S., and colleagues, and published Nov. 16 in the open access journal PLOS Medicine.