The state of Nevada is taking a new approach to tackling the rising price of prescription drugs with a new piece of legislation.
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Nevada just passed one of the strictest drug pricing transparency laws in the country
Nevada is one of 23 states that want to take on the rising cost of drugs. But unlike others, its bill focuses on drugs that are used to treat diabetes.
Sen. Yvanna Cancela speaks with Majority Leader Aaron Ford and diabetes patients.
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The bill was originally introduced in March by state Senator Yvanna Cancela, has faced opposition from lobbyists and nonprofit patient groups that disagree with the bill's approach to reining in prescription drug spending. Even so, the bill, known as SB 265, has passed the Senate on May 19 and the Assembly on May 25.
On June 2, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval vetoed the bill. But it got a second life when it was attached onto
Nevada is one of 23 states with proposed legislation to take on the rising cost of prescription drugs. But unlike others that focus on drug prices in a general sense, the hybrid bill focuses on two specific groups of drugs that are used to treat diabetes: insulin and biguanides.
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It's the latest milestone in government actions at the local, state, and national levels that attempt to change the way we spend money on prescription drugs.
Heres what the law does
- the companies
- responsible for negotiating rebates
- to the prices drugmakers set
- called a gag clause
- modeled after an ordinance in Chicago that requires representatives
- March report published in the New England Journal of Medicine
It's a slight departure from some of the original intentions of the diabetes bill. SB265 originally set up a price control, which could effectively cap insulin price increases at the rate of inflation. And an earlier version of the bill required drugmakers to disclose how they set their drug prices, as well as provide information about how much is spent on marketing and research. Both sections were amended before the bill joined up with SB 539.
Why Nevada is focusing on diabetes
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Diabetes is a group of conditions in which the body can't properly regulate blood sugar that affects roughly 30 million people in the US. And for many people living with diabetes — including the 1.25 million people in the US who have Type-1 diabetes — injecting insulin is part of the daily routine.
Insulin, a hormone that healthy bodies produce, has been used to treat diabetes for almost a century, though it's gone through some modifications. In the past few years, the list price of insulin has increased routinely.
The list price of the most commonly used insulins have increased roughly 300% over the last decade. Technically, there's no "generic" insulin, though a cheaper version of a long-acting insulin did come on the market in 2016. There are cheaper medications for biguanides, such as metformin, which are used to treat Type-2 diabetes.
Before becoming a state senator, Cancela worked as a director for the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, which represents about 60,000 workers. The union pays for its members health insurance through a self-funded trust, which Cancela told Business Insider gave the organization a lot of access to details about how its health funds were being spent. One of the drugs she noticed was becoming a problem for members was insulin.
There are roughly 281,000 adults living in Nevada, or 12% of the total population, that have one of the two types of diabetes, with another 39% in the prediabetes stage, in which blood glucose levels are elevated but not to the point of type-2 diabetes.
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