Why does Insulin cost 10X more in the US than in Canada? TYT

[amcgrath]

9. Some facts

Insulin was "discovered" in 1921, by Canadian Doctor Frederick Banting.

There was no Government healthcare at the time, medicine was private.

Even as a private doctor, Banting said that it would unethical for him to profit from such a discovery.

As a way of getting the insulin to patients, Banting gave his discovery to a university teaching hospital in Toronto. To make the transfer official, Bantings assistants took a dollar.

US pharmaceutical companies did not have to do any R&D. Nor did they own a patent, and if they had, it would have expired before the second world war. - 20 years is the usual patent expiration on medicines

It should also be pointed out that at various times the US government has made official statements suggesting that buying your prescriptions from Canada or Mexico can be dangerous - a government lie to protect the pharmaceutical companies.

Canada is a fair bit bigger than the US and has about a tenth of the population. As a result of economies of scale and less distribution costs, most things in the US are slightly cheaper. There is no reason that that should not apply to medicines too