Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Promises to Enable Universal Access to rh-Insulin by Reducing Prices to Less tha

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Promises to Enable Universal Access to rh-Insulin by Reducing Prices to Less tha

Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Philanthropist and Founder of Biocon announced her personal commitment towards enabling universal access to high quality insulin by offering recombinant human Insulin (rh-Insulin) at less than 10 US cents / day in low and middleincome countries (LMICs).

These countries, which form most of the world, contribute to 80% of the global disease burden. The announcement was made at an United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) side meeting on innovation and universal health access convened by UNAIDS Health Innovation Exchange, in the presence of the President of Ethiopia, the First Lady of Namibia, Health Ministers from Botswana and Malawi, and representatives from the Private Sector and Development Agencies. The forum on ‘Accelerating Innovations and Investments for Access to Healthcare’ was co-sponsored by UNAIDS and the Center for Global Health and Development.

Biocon Biologics’ recombinant human insulin has been developed using the scientific expertise and world class R&D and manufacturing facilities that have allowed it to bring multiple biosimilar medicines to the US and Europe. The Company is committed to use its science, scale and expertise to shift the access paradigm for patients in need of insulins. Biocon is a leading global insulins player with over 15 years of experience in addressing the needs of patients with diabetes, having provided over 2 billion doses of human insulin worldwide, thus far.

The announcement by Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is guided by her conviction that a lifeenabling product like insulin cannot be priced out of the reach of those that need it on an everyday basis, whether in the United States or in Africa. Biocon’s Recombinant Human insulin offer of less than 10 US cents / day in LMICs is for vials sourced by the government directly from Biocon, assuming an insulin dosage of 40 IU per day. Currently, the blended median patient prices in LMICs are US$ 9** per 10 ml vial translating to 36 US cents/ day. The current US list price in retail is over US$ 5*** / day.

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw speaks at the UNAIDS Health Innovation Exchange Meeting on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly, held in New York on 25th September 2019.

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have just witnessed the first UN High Level meeting on Universal Health Care.

Governments have a collective moral responsibility to provide standard of care to every citizen and patient in the world. My own country India has embarked on a path to provide Universal Healthcare to its citizens through an ambitious program called Ayushman Bharat which aims to serve the poorest families in Phase 1 and then expand it over time to cover every citizen. At my own company, we take that word UNIVERSAL very seriously in addressing the needs of diabetics and cancer patients through our products and services. As the head of my organisation Biocon, I stand here as a committed stakeholder of the global health agenda under SDG.

I would like to take this opportunity to focus on Diabetes, a worldwide NCD pandemic which affects nearly half a billion people. Unfortunately, 4 out of 5 diabetic patients live in Low and Middle Income countries. Diabetes and its associated co-morbidities poses perhaps the biggest financial challenge to any proposed universal healthcare model. In fact, it creates an economic future mortgaged to paying for multiple organ disease and loss of productivity.

Physiologically, Diabetes is symptomatic of unmanaged blood sugar due to sub-optimal production of Insulin, a hormone that regulates glucose in the body. It is well known that late adoption of exogenous insulin aggravates metabolic disorders, leading to greater morbidity and loss of quality of life. Early Insulin intervention reduces the risk of co-morbidities.

• retinopathy 76%
• microalbuminuria 62%
• neuropathy 50%
• microvascular complication 37%

Diabetes is often described as a disease of “halves”: half diagnosed, half treated, half compliant, especially in developing economies.

In just about 1000 days, Insulin will turn 100 years old.

Banting and Best gave us this pivotal breakthrough hormone that saves millions of diabetics each year. Despite its universal availability for the last 97 years, it is yet to be universally accessible.

This is untenable.

At Biocon, we are guided by the conviction that a lifesaving product like insulin cannot be priced out of the reach of those that need it on an everyday basis, whether in advanced economies like the United States or in Africa, or anywhere else on the planet.

Our words and convictions are meaningless if there is no action to back them.

So this evening, where we are gathered to deliberate health innovation to enable universal access, as the head of my organization I would like to remove the economic barriers to access and therefore

I am pleased to announce that Biocon will make its recombinant human insulin available at less than 10 cents per day in low and middle income countries. These countries contribute to 80 per cent of the global diabetes burden.

In comparison, the current US list price in retail is over 5 dollars / day or more.

We have, over the last 15 years, delivered 2 billion doses of Insulin to patients in the developing world on an embedded affordability platform. We are committed to expanding this access to patients in all regions of the world.

We are committed to reducing the price of our insulin even further through partnerships with agencies like WHO, UNAIDS & others in order to break the barrier to access in certain geographies which are too poor to deal with the challenge of Diabetes on their own.

While we do our part, we call upon device producers to march in step and ensure lower prices for the pens and needles required to administer the drug.

I am also pleased to be able to make this announcement here today, at this convening of Heads of State and other stakeholders by the UNAIDS Health Innovation Exchange.

This gathering is also reflective of the fact that human health and well-being is not any one country or company undertaking, but a collective effort.

To us at Biocon, both diabetes and cancer represent one reality – the need to innovate and provide access to lifesaving medicines so that everyone, anywhere on the planet, can think of more healthful days than has been possible with those diagnosed.

Ms Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a healthcare visionary and philanthropist. Her vision is to enable universal access to high quality medical products, particularly to address the global chronic disease burden. She is a pioneer of India’s biotech industry and founder of the country’s leading biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. A thought leader and a global influencer, she has been ranked among ‘World’s 25 Most Influential People in Biopharma’ by Fierce Biotech. She was No. 1 in the Business Captains category on the ‘Medicine Maker Power List’ 2018, an index of the 100 most influential people across the globe in the field of medicine, where she has been among the Top 10 continuously since 2015. She is a full-term member of the MIT Corporation, the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and member of the National Academy of Engineering, US. She is on the board of directors of the US-India Business Council (USIBC) and has previously served as a member of the board of trustees of the US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP). She has been conferred with the Advancing Women in Science and Medicine Award for Excellence by the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, US and Othmer Gold Medal by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, US.