Novo Nordisk will stop distribution of its once-daily insulin drug Tresiba after price negotiations with Germany’s health insurance fund trade group broke down, according to BioSpace.com.
Company officials indicated they could not come to an agreement on price with GKV-Spitzenverband, which wanted to set the price level equal to that of human insulin. The company said in a statement doing that would mean too much of a financial loss.

“If we were to accept this price, we would undermine our ability to research and develop medical innovations for people with diabetes,” Jakob Riis, executive vice president, says in a statement.
Novo Nordisk said it will continue to supply Tresiba to the 40,000 Germans currently using it until September 2015, BioSpace.com notes. Setting the price at the level of a drug created in the 1980s forced Novo Nordisk’s hand in the matter, says Riis.

“That would not be in the best interest of the millions of people with diabetes for whom current treatments are insufficient to control their disease,” he explains in a statement. “We deeply regret the uncertainty and inconvenience this situation creates for the affected patients and physicians in Germany, and will do our utmost to support them in the process of switching patients to another insulin treatment.”

The German decision will not affect the 30 other countries where Tresiba is distributed, according to the BioSpace.com article.

Source: BioSpace.com