The shortage highlights a widening gulf in the standard of care for people with diabetes, most of whom live in low-income countries.
South Africa’s public health care system has run out of the human insulin pens that it provides to people with diabetes, as the pharmaceutical industry shifts production priorities to blockbuster weight-loss drugs that use a similar device for delivery.
Novo Nordisk, the company that has supplied South Africa with human insulin in pens for a decade, opted not to renew its contract, which expired last month. No other company has bid on the contract — to supply 14 million pens for the next three years, at about $2 per pen.
“Current manufacturing capacity limitations mean that patients in some countries, including South Africa, may have limited access to our human insulins in pens,” said Ambre James-Brown, a spokeswoman for Novo Nordisk. The company did not reply to questions about which other countries are affected.
Novo Nordisk’s drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which are widely prescribed in the U.S. for weight loss, are sold in single-use pens produced by many of the same contracted manufacturers who make the multidose insulin pens. A month’s supply of Ozempic in the United States costs about $1,000, far more than insulin.
Novo Nordisk dominates the global market for insulin in pens and has supplied South Africa since 2014. Eli Lilly, the other major producer, has indicated in recent months that it is struggling to keep up with the significant demand for its weight-loss drug Zepbound.
“This is because of the global demand for Ozempic and these drugs,” said Khadija Jamaloodien, the director of sector-wide procurement for South Africa’s health service. “They’re shifting the focus on the more profitable line.”