Insulin ‘Shadow Pricing’ Boosted Industry Profits, Panel Finds

Drugmakers spent years raising the cost of insulin largely to compete with each other, resulting in higher prices for the uninsured and the underinsured, according to a two-year-long investigation by the Senate Finance Committee.

Documents turned over to lawmakers showed that Sanofi and Novo Nordisk in particular raised their insulin prices around the same time, a practice known as “shadow pricing,” largely to the benefit of pharmaceutical industry middlemen and without significant changes to the medicine itself.

Leaders of the committee say the findings underscore the need for changes to how drugs like insulin are priced in the U.S. ...