11 August 2018 - The expiry of patents on an insulin analogue has opened the market to the production of biosimilar insulins, but it is unclear if this will ultimately benefit patients.

Since Lantus, Sanofi's long-acting insulin glargine, has come on the market in 2000, it has become the world's leading basal insulin and a premium product for the developer. Lantus has extended the lives of millions of people with diabetes around the world over the past two decades. 

The market at stake is huge, because the drug has become the most widely prescribed insulin product in the world. In Australia, for instance, more than 1% of the population takes Lantus and other developed countries have similarly high figures.

Read The Lancet article