Attorney General Jeff Landry plans to announce an upcoming lawsuit that is meant to tackle high insulin prices for diabetes patients in Louisiana.

Landry’s team recently made a statement regarding the announcement, which will be at 9:30 Tuesday morning.

“Hundreds of thousands of our neighbors have been diagnosed with diabetes, and diabetes is one of the leading causes of death in our State despite effective treatments for it,” explained Attorney General Landry. “Many struggling with diabetes rely on insulin; even though this life-saving treatment has minimal costs to produce, its prices have increased exponentially for consumers.”

This should be a welcome move, as the diabetes epidemic has been rampant and well-known amongst the citizens of Louisiana. An American Diabetes Association fact sheet from 2021 stated that over 500,000 citizens in Louisiana struggled with diabetes at the time, with many more who were undiagnosed.

Landry has shown to be in favor of similar lawsuits before, when he joined a federal lawsuit in 2019 against drug makers regarding price hikes.

Louisiana’s lawsuit isn’t the first having to do with insulin prices. Last year, several states initiated similar litigation. From May of last year…

Arkansas has become the latest US state to issue a legal challenge to the big three insulin producers – Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk – accusing them of deceptively driving up the price of the medicines.

It has filed a lawsuit that accuses the drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts, Caremark and OptumRx of conspiring to manipulate and inflate insulin prices in the state, inflating their profits and making the drugs unaffordable for many diabetics.

Previous lawsuits have been filed by Mississippi and Minnesota, while Michigan has also launched a probe into pricing practices.

“These drug manufacturers and PBMs have inflated the price of insulin and other diabetes-related medication to line their own pockets,” said Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge in a statement.

“They have endangered the lives of thousands of Arkansans and Americans, who simply cannot afford to buy this life-saving medicine. Today we begin the fight to stop this outrageous inflation of insulin pricing.”

The lawsuit is alleging violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA), unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy, and is seeking injunctive relief, restitution, damages, and civil penalties.

Insulin has become the focal point of the medicine pricing debate in the US, particularly as prices have stayed high long after products have lost patent protection and are round eight times higher than in other countries, according to a 2020 report by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The three main producers have announced price cuts in the last couple of years, but critics say these do not go far enough to help people with diabetes who are struggling to afford their medicines.

Additionally, in January California also launched litigation against insulin makers.