- I got a serious question for everybody out there.
I generally want to know this, okay?
How is everybody making it?
I just got,
here's a prescription, it was $1000.
I now have to go in and tell my nine-year-old son -
I couldn't pay for it.
- This is Katie.
After staring down a bill
for her son's insulin she couldn't afford,
she hit a wall.
Her frustration clearly struck a cord
racking up millions of views.
- Am I the only one struggling?
How are you guys doing it?
- What do you think about that?
(man sighs)
- I don't even know what to say.
- The deadliest conflict
in history is playing out and no one cares.
- This team of bio-hackers think they're on the verge
of a solution - by reverse engineering insulin
then sharing the instructions with the world.
- Very few people really have any concrete ideas
about how to solve these problems.
At the level of the technical fundamentals,
it's clear that we can do this.
And if we can, we must.
- This is just my work.
A show about surprising solutions to our biggest problems.
- When I was diagnosed with type one diabetes
it came as quite a surprise.
As time went on, I became more aware that
my life was actually hanging from a very thin thread.
- The price of insulin has been on the rise for years,
but while prescription costs have skyrocketed
the cost to produce it is actually-
- Remarkably low.
$1.50 to
$5
a vial.
Because of the way the supply chain works,
or doesn't work, in the United States.
The list prices are $300 a vial and even more.
- And that's in part because three companies own 90%
of the world's insulin and they've consistently
matched each other's price increases.
- Producers of medicine don't really face competition.
Our work definitely aims to bring an end
to that situation where people can produce a medicine
without facing any competition.
- The big three manufacturers have introduced
their own versions of generics.
And even though it has reduced costs
for the first time in a while,
they're still unaffordable for many who need it.
- The Open Insulin Project is an effort to make the means
of producing insulin
available to everyone who needs insulin.
- Their plan to disrupt the market starts with figuring
out how to make insulin, then sharing the instructions
with everyone else.
And that first part has proven to be pretty complicated.
Jan can explain.
- Insulin is particularly tricky.
The insulin lispro, we try to express it in E. coli,
and glargine, we try to express it in yeast.
You have to extract the protein.
You have to purify the proteins.
This is only the beginning.
- Dozens of volunteers have been working
for six years and are just now nearing a breakthrough.
- We are able to produce insulin in the wet lab.
And the science is really working.
And we are really in a place that we are like, okay,
we are getting close to get like a protocol
that could be used to actually produce insulin
that is injectable.
- If it works,
they estimate their insulin would be 98% cheaper.
- The goal would be to measure the glucose intake
of those sales.
So you can have insulin sales with commercial insulin
and then you have sales with your insulin.
And then you look at how much glucose they can get.
- Meaning their insulin would be able to safely
and effectively regulate blood sugar
just as well as commercial insulin.
- And this would be the final proof
that we managed to have functional insulin.
- The FDA will approve the molecules and actually
the FDA have been changing the regulation around insulin
because they want to open the market much more.
That means that we are in the good track
to make sure we have affordable insulin in the market soon.
- But Open Insulin is a small team in a small lab.
They know they can't make enough insulin
for the millions that need it.
So they're taking an open source approach.
They don't anticipate people making DIY insulin
in their kitchen, but they do envision sharing the protocol
for producing insulin, with community labs all
over the world for free, without restrictions.
Basically provide the blueprint to set up
their same operation anywhere.
- Working at a smaller scale means
that the supply chain is shorter and less complex.
- Open Insulin is already working
with volunteers across the U.S. and around the world.
- Our plans to have a system for local production
that can operate anywhere in the world
that there's a need for it.
- What is great with Open Insulin is like
it is international.
There's other country around the world
that don't even have access to insulin.
It's not even that it's too expensive.
It's just not there.
If you depend on something to survive,
you should be able to control it.
Maybe just the threat of us coming to the U.S. market
will be like an electroshock for people to say:
wait, these guys, they are just volunteers
with a nonprofit with limited resources.
They were able to do that and look
at the price they say they will sell it.
Why is a pharma asking that much price for that?
- You know, there was a time for being angry
now that we can actually see an end to this soon.
It's not anger anymore. It's just determination.
(triumphant piano music)