![](\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/media-library\/sen-bernie-sanders-i-vt.jpg?id=33164951&width=1200&height=600&coordinates=0%2C377%2C0%2C378\"\/)
Crediting advocacy groups with pressuring two out of the three pharmaceutical companies that supply insulin to patients with diabetes in the United States to drastically lower their prices, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called on the last of the trio, Sanofi, to do the same while arguing price caps should be mandatory\u2014not a choice.<\/strong><\/p> Novo Nordisk on Tuesday announced that it will cut prices by up to 75% for some of its insulin products starting next year, less than two weeks after one of its rival companies, Eli Lilly, said it plans to slash prices for its most widely used insulin products by 70%. <\/p> A vial of one of Novo's products, NovoLog, will drop from more than $289 to just over $72, and the insulin product FlexPen will cost $139, down from more than $500, starting January 1, 2024.<\/p> The price changes come after the price of insulin for patients has more than tripled in recent decades, with deadly consequences<\/a> for some of the eight million Americans who rely on synthetic insulin to convert food into energy. A study based on the 2021 National Health Interview Survey last November found<\/a> that 1.3 million people in the U.S. rationed their insulin supply in 2021 due to the drug's prohibitive cost.<\/p> Sanders (I-Vt.) noted that \"grassroots pressure\" forced Eli Lilly and Novo this month to announce major price cuts, but said that as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee he \"will soon hold a hearing on the need to guarantee insulin at an affordable price to everyone who needs it,\" suggesting that voluntary price cuts by companies are not sufficient.<\/p>\n