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June 20, 2016 at 07:38 AM
(Bloomberg) — Eli Lilly & Co.’s older drugs are more prone to price pressure than its newest ones, a company executive said Friday on a call with investors.
Drugmakers face raised scrutiny from patients, health insurers and politicians over the high cost of prescription medicine. Yet Indianapolis-based Lilly’s comments make clear that its customers are willing to pay up for the most innovative treatments even as the industry faces pushback on price increases on older therapies.
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For example Humalog, the company’s fast-acting insulin, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1996. Most of the growth in the last three years has been through market share, where the company gained 9 percentage points, versus price, which rose 1 percent to 2 percent a year, Lilly Vice President Mike Mason told investors.
“With our new products, I think, the pressures are a little bit different than that and we continue to get good growth,” Mason said.
Diabetes has become a backbone of the company’s revenue since losing patent protection on two blockbusters, the antidepressant Cymbalta and the antipsychotic Zyprexa.
