NHS ‘wasted’ £625 million on modern insulin

pharmafile | September 23, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing |  diabetes, insulin 

The NHS has wasted £625 million on modern insulin products over the last decade, according to a new report in the BMJ.

It found the health service spent £625 million over the past decade on synthetic forms of insulin, when the recommended human alternatives – which are considerably cheaper – would have probably been just as effective.

The finding comes as a UN health summit in New York this week debates how to step up international efforts to tackle the rising global burden of non-communicable diseases, including diabetes.

Over the past 10 years, the NHS spent a total of £2.7 billion on insulin, with the annual cost rising from £156 million to £359 million – an increase of 130 per cent.

The annual cost to the NHS of synthetic (analogue) insulin rose from £18.2 million, or 12% of the total, to £305 million, or 85% of the total. Meanwhile, the cost of human insulin fell from £131 million, or 84% of total, to £51 million, or 14% of the total.

Working on the assumption that all patients prescribed insulin analogues could have been prescribed human insulin instead, the NHS could have saved itself £625 million, say the authors of the report.

But even if only half of those patients could have been switched, that’s still more than £300 million of savings for the NHS, they add.

The number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK has risen to 2.8 million, around 90% of whom have type II diabetes. Where those with type 1 disease require insulin from the start, those with type II disease tend to be started on insulin later on.

Insulin analogues were developed to better mimic the actions of the insulin manufactured by the body, but it is not clear if the benefits are sufficient to justify their additional cost, say the authors.

“We know that the rise of insulin analogues has had a substantial financial impact on the NHS, yet over the same period there has been no observable clinical benefit to justify that investment,” they conclude.

Ben Adams