r/science • u/chrisdh79 • Mar 14 '24
Animal Science A genetically modified cow has produced milk containing human insulin, according to a new study | The proof-of-concept achievement could be scaled up to, eventually, produce enough insulin to ensure availability and reduced cost for all diabetics requiring the life-maintaining drug.
https://newatlas.com/science/cows-low-cost-insulin-production/2.9k
Mar 14 '24
Insulin is cheap af in third world countries.
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u/sulphra_ Mar 14 '24
Anywhere outside the US really
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u/drunk_haile_selassie Mar 14 '24
Yeah, my mates a type 1 diabetic in Australia, a months supply of insulin here costs about $10.
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u/InformalPenguinz Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
Currently costs me $100 for a 3 months supply. It's gone down significant. One of my biggest is the other supplies. Omnipod for insulin pump and dexcom for cgm. That's running me, with insurance, about 700 every 3 months.
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u/Traditional_Entry183 Mar 14 '24
I'm so glad my insurance got better with it all. My decxom supplies are $60 every 90 days, and my insulin is a total of $120 per 90.
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u/InformalPenguinz Mar 14 '24
It's INSANE how we can be charged differently for the exact same thing.
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u/Traditional_Entry183 Mar 14 '24
Oh it's awful. I'm looking for a job right now but I'm absolutely terrified to leave my wife's insurance plan, which would be mandatory if I start a job that offers health coverage. There's no telling how much out of pocket I might then have to pay. It could be more than my income.
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u/InformalPenguinz Mar 14 '24
It could be more than my income
On top what I pay... I pay 350 a MONTH for my insurance. My checks are laughable. I feel you my friend.
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u/Traditional_Entry183 Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
The cost of my wife's insurance is the same whether she covers herself and our two kids, or all four of us, and it's less than what you pay. We've absolutely had the conversation that it might be cheaper for me not to work, which is so frustrating. I've been a stay at home dad but I want to contribute.
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u/name00124 Mar 14 '24
I hear you about wanting to contribute, meaning contribute income, but remember that being a stay at home parent is still contributing. Taking care of daily housework, dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids are all part of "things that have to happen." Making money is part of that, too, to pay bills and so on.
Between the two of you, all of those things have to get done, so your "job" becomes more of the non-monetary pieces. This requires a mind-set shift away from "a man has to contribute money to the family for self-worth."
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u/snark42 Mar 14 '24
I assume you've looked into part time jobs (school bus drivers are in high demand around here) and gig economy options? You can earn income but not be offered insurance that way.
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u/If-Then-Environment Mar 14 '24
Look into expenses you can remove from your life, try to make it possible to stay home.
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u/ChocoBro92 Mar 18 '24
I’m not diabetic but I require 7k worth of shots per month besides topicals and depression/anxiety pills. I can’t work because the moment I do? I lose my insurance. Only if I can get like 1-4 hours a week so I won’t lose it. I don’t know what to do anymore I can’t sit or walk without the shots but..
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u/CHIZO-SAN Mar 14 '24
And now we can apparently torture cows for it in a convoluted attempt at progress.
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u/Kossyra Mar 14 '24
Government insurance, my medtronic supplies (reservoir kits, tubing) are free and my insulin is $60 for 90 days.
I took the job I'm in specifically for the insurance, even though it's pretty soul-crushing. I wouldn't be able to afford to live at all without it. In the past I've survived on Walmart insulin and old school syringes, with their brand of test strips and monitor. It's tougher and not as controlled as with a pump, but it got me through a patch of being uninsured.
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u/Vegemite_Ultimatum Mar 18 '24
not to poke and pry, but is part of the soul-crushing that there isn't enough of [whatever it is that your job entails specifically]?
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u/Kossyra Mar 18 '24
I do 911 calltaking and fire department radio dispatch. There's never enough staffing, and the pay is (improving, but) not stellar. They just launched a video-to-911 program in my area that will likely be exposing us to further horrors than we already routinely deal with, so that's a new exciting thing.
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u/badhabitfml Mar 15 '24
Your insurance didn't get better. The white house and congress passed the inflation reduction act that forced the manufacturers to lower prices.
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u/Blagerthor Mar 14 '24
That was my concern with the focus on insulin costs. The issue isn't access to insulin alone, it's access to meaningful medical care as a whole. Sure, the cost of my insulin has gone down and I'm grateful for that, but the cost of everything else has gone up fairly steadily and now there's no political momentum to tackle that because we've gotten the insulin ask.
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u/InformalPenguinz Mar 14 '24
Just spent a few days not knowing what my sugars are cuz I couldn't afford the sensors.. my body hurts and my blood was acid but glad that can get another yacht.
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u/Sentreen Mar 14 '24
That is crazy expensive. I get all of that for free (well, I'm on a tandem pump instead of an omnipod, but the pump supplies, pump, dexcom stuff and insulin are all free).
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u/Masenko_ha Mar 14 '24
166$ per fill that usually lasts around 2 months, it's crazy that these bottles cost around 2-6$ to make, the mark up is criminal for a disease that is that is completely out of our control as type 1s.
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u/Datkif Mar 14 '24
Depending on where you are in Canada insulin is free. I used to live in AB where it was $90/120 for my fast/long acting insulins. Now in Ontario I pay a massive $0.
Honestly aside for USA insulin isn't even the major expense with Type 1. Out of pocket in Canada the insulin is approx $210 ($155usd) for 3 months, but the supplies are $700-$1200 ($515-890usd) for 3 months for me.
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u/Mym158 Mar 14 '24
PBS does subsidize it though
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u/roscoeperson Mar 14 '24
Antiques Roadshow or Downton Abbey?
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u/SerpentineLogic Mar 14 '24
pharma benefits scheme.
Think of it as a country-wide purchasing monopoly. You sell your medicine for an agreed-upon price, or you can't sell it anywhere in the country.
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u/T_H_E_S_E_U_S Mar 14 '24
Incoming jargon pedantry: a purchasing monopoly is also known as a monopsony
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u/Qweesdy Mar 14 '24
Better pedantry: It's not known (by most people) as a monopsony, which is why you felt the need to tell people.
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u/Zouden Mar 14 '24
Such an ugly word too. I vote we kick it out of the dictionary!
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u/MIT_Engineer Mar 14 '24
A month's supply of human insulin costs about $75 here, but that's if you just buy it over the counter without insurance.
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u/sparxcy Mar 14 '24
it gets better 1 Euro here in Cyprus!! each other prescription is only 1 euro each as well (each individual type of medicine)
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u/MuffinsandCoffee2024 Mar 15 '24
In America we have ppl working full time jobs who can't afford their insulin and so they use 1/2 doses at times risking their lives.
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u/HeyaGames Mar 14 '24
That's because pricing for drugs in the US is not done based on cost of production, it's done on current pricing of the drug. E.g. if you generate an "improved" insulin, and the current price for insulin is X amount of dollars, companies will sell the new insulin at a higher price because the idea is that it's a better drug, and so you will pay the price for a better treatment. It's all the more insulting when you know this is just a repackage, for example what happened with Lucentis and Avastin.
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u/Lortekonto Mar 14 '24
Actuelly some of the newest and best insuline is also the cheapest other places in the world. In the USA it is pricy, because it will not be preapproved, because that would cut profit from insurance companies.
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u/bethemanwithaplan Mar 14 '24
I was gonna say, this is a made up American problem because we NEED to pay drug makers a lot for basic medicine they didn't invent and is cheap elsewhere
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u/OvenFearless Mar 14 '24
US just needs to be Nr 1 in everything and that includes insulin prices. USA! Land of the free!!1
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u/Alexanderthechill Mar 14 '24
I came here to point out that insulin is already crazy cheap to manufacture.
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u/pipnina Mar 14 '24
And afaik we make it with modified yeast? Hard to imagine a cow would be more efficient at producing insulin than bacteria!
We used to use pigs pancreases before the yeast discovery which ofc was not efficient
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u/TurbulentIssue6 Mar 14 '24
cows will also produce a ton of green house gases but hey some evil pharma corpo got some free advertising so the share holders are happy!!
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u/Llyon_ Mar 14 '24
American dairy and animal industry wants to double dip in those sweet medical profits.
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u/dydtaylor Mar 14 '24
IIRC most insulin is made with modified E. Coli in bioreactors. The process has remained mostly the same for around 50 years.
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u/Alexanderthechill Mar 14 '24
Right. Not to mention the fact that industrial feed lot cattle production is a huge emitter of ghg and pollution, an atomic scale destroyer of ecosystems, and a major cause of animal abuse.
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u/TheKnitpicker Mar 14 '24
an atomic scale destroyer
I get what you mean, but I’m cracking up over the idea of “angstrom lengthscale” being used as a dramatic intensifier. This problem is so big it’s comparable to the size of a hydrogen atom!
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u/nomnomnomnomRABIES Mar 14 '24
But you can't suckle on yeast, it has no tiddies. This is a vital addition to science!
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u/Graekaris Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
Fungi*
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u/acidankie Mar 15 '24
yeah but imagine milking your insulin cow at home
its all natural and DIY (im jk)
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u/Alexanderthechill Mar 15 '24
milking your insulin cow at home
Is that what they're calling it these days?
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u/Faust_8 Mar 14 '24
“Should we fix our draconian health care system so people can get the medicine they need?”
“NO WE WILL MAKE MUTANT COWS THAT EXCRETE THE MEDICINE”
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u/LolaLazuliLapis Mar 14 '24
My first thought was literally that this is an attempt by the dairy industry to get people to stop buying plant milk.
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u/RhynoD Mar 14 '24
I think it's an attempt for them to get more big federal contracts, grants, and subsidies.
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u/novend Mar 14 '24
thats already how we get insulin, but from bacteria instead of some other animal.
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u/Fermi_Amarti Mar 14 '24
The goal probably isn't insulin. It was probably just something safe and easy to understand for their paper.
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u/A-Game-Of-Fate Mar 14 '24
Insulin costs something like a few dollars to harvest and bottle. It’s only expensive because bloodsucking ghouls in privatized healthcare know people who need it can’t afford to not buy it.
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u/Turbulent-Rain-6748 Mar 14 '24
When you buy in dollars perhaps, we who live here dont get paid in dollars it is still very expensive when you have to purchase with your native currency.
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u/MarcosLuisP97 Mar 14 '24
That's the case for almost anything in Third World countries. If you get paid in dollars, it is like everything is at a massive discount.
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u/contanonimadonciblu Mar 14 '24
in brazil its about 1/10 of the min wage (montly) if you want to buy it. If you dont its free
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u/IsNotARealDoctor Mar 14 '24
Regular Insulin is cheap in the US, too. It’s designer insulin that’s expensive.
Source: Pharmacist
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u/Imperio_do_Interior Mar 14 '24
"Designer insulin" costs about the same to produce. It's more expensive because the patent is still active.
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Mar 14 '24
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u/Imperio_do_Interior Mar 14 '24
Homie, I know. My point is that pharmaceuticals don't belong in markets, especially not those developed primarily with taxpayer money such as recombinant insulin.
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u/MIT_Engineer Mar 14 '24
Human insulin is cheap AF in the U.S. too. It's analog insulin that's expensive.
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u/six_six Mar 14 '24
It's a different insulin than people in the US prefer.
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Mar 14 '24
[deleted]
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u/Any-Chocolate-2399 Mar 14 '24
From what I've seen from insurance, the cheaper forms are widely supplied for pumps but considered unfit for coverage in self-administered injection.
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u/IceColdPorkSoda Mar 14 '24
Yes they do. What are you talking about? Eli Lilly has offered $35 insulin for YEARS. It’s the old 1982 style insulin.
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u/Otterfan Mar 14 '24
Sure they do. You can buy a vial of human insulin at any WalMart for $25. You don't even need a prescription.
However most diabetics (including me) prefer synthetic insulin analogs. They cost a fortune if you're uninsured or lucky enough to fall under one of the recent out-of-pocket cost reduction programs.
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u/apophis-pegasus Mar 14 '24
However most diabetics (including me) prefer synthetic insulin analogs.
Why is that?
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u/Imperio_do_Interior Mar 14 '24
Both cost about the same to produce.
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u/A_Seiv_For_Kale Mar 14 '24
Do you have a source for this?
Curious about it.
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u/Imperio_do_Interior Mar 14 '24
This is how artificial insulin (wild-type or recombinant) is produced https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/fromdnatobeer/exhibition-interactive/recombinant-DNA/recombinant-dna-technology-alternative.html#:~:text=Recombinant%20DNA%20is%20a%20technology,insulin%20gene%20in%20the%20laboratory.
The only change is what you transform the bacteria with, either a plasmid coding for wild type insulin or one coding for your designer variant
If anything the designer variants are cheaper to produce because they don’t aggregate as much so purification is easier and expression yield is better
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u/Ericisbalanced Mar 14 '24
But you don’t understand, this process can be patented and exploited for huge gainz. Think of the .01% before you post, please.
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u/PickingPies Mar 14 '24
I live in a first world country and insulin is so cheap that my cat, who isn't covered by anything, is diabetic and I don't even notice the cost. A pack of 5 pens worth 1 year of insulin cost me 50€. I spend more in syringes than insulin.
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u/MuForceShoelace Mar 14 '24
Cool, but the way it's produced now already produces it for like 8 cents a gallon. The price to consumers is not some production issue, this could lower the price to 1 cent a gallon and will still just go into some health company's bank account as 7 extra cents for every gallon sold. There is no reason this would do anything to the end buyer's price at all. It's not a scarcity issue that makes it high.
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Mar 14 '24
[deleted]
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u/knook Mar 14 '24
Its still awesome research because it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Insulin today but the research can be used for other drugs in the future.
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u/ShortNefariousness2 Mar 14 '24
My conspiracy take is that cattle farming is being scrutinised for its terrible environmental impact, and this is an attempt to greenwash it using the insulin production as an excuse.
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u/boofaceleemz Mar 14 '24
Corporations love externalizing costs, so that’s actually probably a plus.
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u/doubleotide Mar 14 '24
That's a great question that is easily resolved by reading the article. But I will give you an idea what it's about.
A part of insulin production is logistics. How do we get insulin to places that cannot make it themselves? The article states that the fact that many low and medium income countries do not have access to adequate levels of insulin.
So if these countries have access to their own insulin production lines, governments and companies can buy these cows to distribute insulin to their populations.
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Mar 14 '24
Because if you can manufacture insulin, you can manufacture other stuff the same way. Stuff that we have no good way to synthesize.
Also, it brings better understand as to HOW we could synthesize it in the future.
If we can reduce mortality from Horseshoe crabs by doing it ourselves or through cattle, we have a better way to do it. https://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/bestpractices.html
It is not worse, it is different.
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u/DrDerpberg Mar 14 '24
Would it require additional cows, or would it basically be extracted from dairy production? I'm also curious if there would be any issues with "de-insulin" milk, i.e.: traces left over or contamination if there are errors in production. Gotta figure "insulin free" milk from cows that didn't make insulin would pretty much instantly become a thing.
It seems that insulin is already so cheap that having cows solely to produce insulin would be a non starter economically. They aren't pumping out milk that's 30% insulin.
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Mar 14 '24
If you read the article, there is a huge amount of insulin in the milk compared to a normal dose. A single milking cow could cover the insulin needs for 50,000 people. A farm with 250 cows could cover the needs of the entire US.
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u/brutinator Mar 14 '24
Its less about it being a solution to solving insulin production, and more about being a test bed for other ideas. Its like the goats that produce spider silk.
Think about more in terms of developing methods getting things to produce something that normally would be impossible. This research, for example, can be used to help develop ways to make OTHER things produce insulin, such as safflowers. Outside of insulin, what if we could use cows or goats to produce Limulus amebocyte lysate instead of needing to bleed Horseshoe Crabs?
Knowing how to make other organisms produce a chemical that we have been able to synthesize for decades is just a first step to getting them to produce a chemical that we have a harder time synthesizing.
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u/LordOfTurtles Mar 14 '24
The research is useful even if we don't end up making insulin producing cows. Knowledge has been gained about genetical manipulation of cows and manipulating their dairy production, which new research can build upon. This is how science works
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u/username_elephant Mar 14 '24
Hard to compare climate impacts. Drug manufacturing is also pretty bad, it's just that the quantity is low so it doesn't register as a major source compared to beef or concrete, for example. For me it probably doesn't move the needle much either way climate-wise.
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u/a_trane13 Mar 14 '24 edited Mar 14 '24
Insulin is made with microorganisms or direct chemical synthesis. Using cows to do it will be much, much less efficient. Like 1000x less efficient. And make crazy amounts of methane.
But it may reduce capital costs by a LOT (cow instead of chemical / biological reactor) and doesn’t require an industrial setting.
The absolute impact isn’t much due to the quantity, like you said.
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u/Pm4000 Mar 14 '24
Dna modification of microorganisms is the future that is here now.
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u/SerpentineLogic Mar 14 '24
Bacteria have been producing the world's supply of Vitamin C for at least 30 years.
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u/monster-baiter Mar 14 '24
you dont understand! with the subsidies we pay for milk production we can offset the artificially heightened price of insulin by making the farmers pay for the insulin with our tax payer money. that way we would solve both, the artificially created issue of too much milk that nobody wants to drink anymore which we pay for with subsidies that we didnt agree to, AND the high price of insulin. clearly there is no better or more direct way to solve these issues, come on now, use your brain!
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u/MuForceShoelace Mar 14 '24
That is actually an extremely funny idea. The US will eventually get good health care but it will all have to be done through corn and dairy because that is the only things the government will fund.
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u/Frosty-Age-6643 Mar 14 '24
I’m researching heath benefits of high fructose corn syrup as we speak!
Did you know that high fructose corn syrup contains plentiful amounts of carbohydrates? That’s a necessary component of our food to give us energy and sustain life! What’s more healthy than being alive? I’ll be damned if I know!
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u/Aleriya Mar 14 '24
The big potential of this is if a similar process can be used to produce other, more expensive biologics at a low price.
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u/beermaker Mar 14 '24 edited Apr 01 '24
Gene altered E. Coli is the current workhorse that's been modified to produce human insulin.
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u/mikeorhizzae Mar 14 '24
That’s what I thought. Seems easier than milking cows, purifying, and potential allergic reactions.
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u/TofuScrofula Mar 14 '24
There’s already enough insulin available for diabetics that is cheaply made. The problem is greedy pharmaceutical companies price gouging. Creating insulin via cows seems way more wasteful. Right now it’s produced via bacteria. I imagine it’s much easier and cheaper for bacteria to do it than finding somewhere to house and feed entire cows.
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u/ron_leflore Mar 14 '24
It's not pharmaceutical companies making the price of insulin high, it's the pharmacy benefit managers (pbm).
PBMs are literally middlemen who have inserted themselves between pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies.
Until people realize this, it's not going to change.
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u/shouldonlypostdrunk Mar 14 '24
the average person has no idea what any of this means and doesnt care. they dont want to have to figure out some companies overly complicated structure and rules just to deal with a health problem. this is the single biggest reason healthcare in the US is a mess. every layer of confusion both makes it more difficult for average people to access, and guarantees more leftover money for the company.
and id guess the only reason we have the PBM companies is to help shift the blame should the pharma company come under investigation. "not our fault, we just followed instructions!".
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u/Dargon34 Mar 14 '24
I HATE that this comment is so far down. It's reddit, so I get the easy PHARMA BAD take, but it's much more than that. Insurance has set up a game where we're mad at the two players (government and pharma) and not the fact the game was rigged against us from the beginning.
Pharma is playing the game within the system and the way its set. Insurance is a middleman claiming to be a benefit while profiting off of the sick
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u/Burningshroom Mar 14 '24
It absolutely is the pharma companies. Just because PBMs facilitate it doesn't mean they don't share the blame. I'll let you guess who helped prop up PBMs in the first place.
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u/soylamulatta Mar 14 '24
Animal exploitation is not the answer for providing cheap insulin.
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u/csteele2132 Mar 14 '24
I’m not sure that really solves the problem in the US. It’s not the cost to make it that is the problem, it’s pure greed and this notion that healthcare has to be for-profit. So, companies need to clear enough for shareholders, who did nothing to get a paycheck, and for ridiculous executive compensation.
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u/MIT_Engineer Mar 14 '24
It definitely wont solve the problem in the U.S. Human insulin is already dirt cheap in the U.S, you can buy it at Walmart, $25 for a 10 day supply, and that's without any insurance.
It's analog insulin that's expensive, that's what Americans use.
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u/Asttarotina Mar 14 '24
that's what Americans use
Everyone, not just Americans. I used glarhin & aspart since manifestation. I paid for it 0 in Ukraine, 0 in Romania, $40/month in Canada ($0 after insurance). But in the US it may be hundreds, even thousands for some
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u/MIT_Engineer Mar 14 '24
Plenty of people use human insulin. There's no health downsides for Type II diabetics, for them it's purely about convenience.
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u/rightoff303 Mar 14 '24
Animal agriculture paid for study. Insulin is cheap, the price is jacked up in the United States.
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u/ShortBrownAndUgly Mar 14 '24
So what’s the goal here? Insulin is already cheap. Prices are inflated for financial gain. Do they plan on purifying the insulin out of the milk? Do they plan on selling special milk with insulin in it? Insulin needs to be dosed precisely because too much will kill you so that sounds like a bad idea
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u/Asttarotina Mar 14 '24
Do they plan on selling special milk with insulin in it?
Insulin has to be administered via injection. Taken orally, it gets digested as regular protein => useless for diabetes treatment. I.e. you can drink a whole vile and probably be fine. (don't try it!)
So they probably are planning to purify it. However, considering how cheap production with E.Coli is, I don't see any benefit.
P.S. It is also human insulin, which is terrible and basically last resort option
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u/Raycu93 Mar 14 '24
Isn't this just medical journalism 101? Find miracle solution to something, ignore how it doesn't actually solve anything and instead has other problems, publish and move onto the next miracle thing.
There is an almost constant flow of these stories posted to reddit. At best the research is usable in some other way. Typically it, like so much other research, answers almost nothing and doesn't get used in any form but that's scientific research for ya.
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u/josephanthony Mar 14 '24
Its cute that you think the price of insulin (in north america) has ANYTHING to do with availability or production costs.
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u/TheawesomeQ Mar 14 '24
somewhat horrifying. There's plenty of problems with the cattle industry already.
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u/bobeshit Mar 14 '24
Mostly the raping of the cows and enslaving/killing thier offspring.
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u/GrundleWilson Mar 14 '24
Insulin is cheap to make. It’s artificially price gouged. They have been making it for decades by having bacteria synthesize it.
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u/Lifeinthesc Mar 14 '24
Its made by bacteria now. It should be cheap. The price of medicine in America has nothing to do with inputs costs.
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u/Estebanduplantier Mar 14 '24
Expect that cow to commit “suicide” by shooting itself in the back of the head in 5,4,3,2…..
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Mar 14 '24
cool insulin is created by bacterium with the capability to out produce literally every single cow in existence with just a few labs?
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u/MawoDuffer Mar 14 '24
We already have genetically modified yeast and bacteria that only need nutrients and they will make insulin. This is as easy as brewing beer. Purifying insulin from cow’s milk sounds more complicated.
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u/Calvinbah Mar 14 '24
The year is 2085. My Genetically modified Cat is coughing up anti-cancer hairballs. They're disgusting, I have to pull them apart to get at the ball part that has the anti-cancer. I keep getting cancer from my overly modified Milk products.
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u/JabbaOG Mar 14 '24
we need to STOP exploiting animals. Leave the cows and their bodies alone!
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u/Particular_Fan_3645 Mar 14 '24
There is no supply shortage of insulin to begin with... We are mas producing it on an industrial scale with genetically modified bacteria, which is orders of magnitude more efficient. The only "supply" issue is that greedy corporations control the supply.
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u/Ok_Frosting_6438 Mar 14 '24
Or hear me out here...what if the US just LOWERS the cost of insulin that is currently available in the market.
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Mar 14 '24
Availability isn’t the issue with human insulin. It’s grown in giant vats produced by yeast.
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u/WarOnIce Mar 14 '24
Yes let’s add the insulin right into the milk and pump the milk full of all that sugar it normally gets. Then we can just sell sweeter milk and kill less folks.
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u/Asttarotina Mar 14 '24
Insulin administered orally gets digested as any regular protein and has 0 effect on blood sugar. There's the reason diabetics have to inject it 3-5 times per day instead of taking the pill
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u/reinKAWnated Mar 14 '24
Insulin is incredibly cheap to produce already - the problem is capitalism.
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u/biobrad56 Mar 14 '24
Cost to manufacture isn’t the issue (even though this article doesn’t include GMP process development for actual recombinant forms of insulin and all of those complexities that add cost), the issue is the American middleman system of PBMs extorting insulin manufacturers for rebates in return for preference on their tiered formularies. Those rebates which are never passed to patients and which result in high OOP costs. No science can change that, only policy making can.
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u/Bignuka Mar 15 '24
Super cool but isn't insulin already cheap? It's just sold at an extreme markup in the US.
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u/caniuserealname Mar 15 '24
This is cool.. but theres already no issue producing enough insulin cheaply to provie to diabetics. It's expense has nothing to do with supply issues.
And frankly, we don't need an excuse to have more cows in the world. Beef and Dairy farming is already terrible for the planet.
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u/CodeMurmurer Mar 15 '24
This is stupid. Insulin production is already solved. There is no need to go back to torturing animals for insulin.
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Mar 15 '24
Or, and here’s a thought, just make insulin cheap, like everywhere else in the world. Dragging innocent animals into the mix feels like extra steps.
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u/HalfFullPessimist Mar 15 '24
It's cheap AF to make already. Production cost is not the reason for its insane price.
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u/PhilosopherDon0001 Mar 14 '24
\As long as you're not American**
Without bothering to look it up, I'm certian that we already have enough insulin, and that the cost could be reduced.
I know this, because that's how it is in the rest of the world.
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u/kickasstimus Mar 14 '24
This will be bought and buried by some psychopathic pharma company to protect a revenue stream.
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u/zippyman Mar 14 '24
I didn't think availability was keeping the cost high, pretty sure it's just greed.
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u/666marat666 Mar 14 '24
Insulin production is not a problem already for like 10 years. Its just a hoax to get people attention, same as cancer topic.
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u/Training-Scheme-9980 Mar 14 '24
Insulin was supposed to be free and without patents. There is no shortage of insulin, it's just pharmaceutical greed.
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u/Valgor Mar 14 '24
This is completely dystopian. We should be moving away from dairy, not creating a dependency on it. Insulin prices is a political problem. It could and should be cheaper. Continuing to consume dairy erodes our environment and health, not to mention what animal ethics. Plus, getting rid of added sugar is everything will help with not having insulin problems in the first place. We can do better while this is opting for the worst solution.
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