- Manufacturers have increased the price of insulin by ~250% over the last 10 years [1]

- They also exploit the patent system to prevent the production of a 'generic' insulin [2][3]

- OpenInsulin is crowdfunding/crowdsourcing the development of an open-source, unpatented insulin [4]

- Medicare spent $13B on insulin in 2017, up 850% from 2007 [5][6]

It appears that:

- Government spending on insulin will only continue to increase (exponentially?)

- If OpenInsulin are successful, insulin will become available for a fraction of the price

- There is a VERY strong financial incentive for governments to invest heavily in the development of generic medicines and projects like OpenInsulin

Imagine if several governments got together and put 2% of their insulin spend ($260M p/a for the US alone[5]) into these kind of projects. Regardless of the contribution to humanity, surely it just makes loads of financial sense.

Does anyone know if this is already being done? Or WHY it isn't already being done? Are there any peverse incentives that are preventing this kind of open-source medical utopia?

Sources:

1: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/insulin-price-increased-last-decade-chart-2019-9?r=US&IR=T

2: https://undark.org/2021/06/16/how-patent-extensions-keep-some-drug-costs-high/

3: https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/why-is-there-no-generic-insulin#Patent-system-discourages-new-insulin

4: <https://openinsulin.org/>

5: <https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/how-much-does-medicare-spend-on-insulin>

6: This isn't just because of price hikes - diabetes is becoming more common as well.