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CALIFORNIA BECOMES FIRST STATE TO SELL ITS OWN INSULIN  
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Grant Stringer, Bay Area News Group, TNS
December 15, 2025
Governing
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_ The new CalRx insulin will hit the market in January at $55 a
month, part of a broader state effort to rein in drug costs. _

Emma Kleck, of Santa Cruz, California, hugs her diabetes alert dog
Samantha, while at her home on Friday, Dec.12, 2025. , Jose Carlos
Fajardo/Bay Area News Group/TNS

 

Emma Kleck has been totally dependent on insulin, the lifesaving
medication for people living with diabetes, for 25 years.Kleck, 32, of
Santa Cruz, was diagnosed with the rarer Type 1 diabetes at age 7.
About 3.5 million Californians have a form of diabetes and need
constant doses of insulin, a hormone that keeps blood sugar levels in
check, to stay alive.“I’m so reliant on this liquid,” Kleck
said. “I guess I try not to think about it a lot. I wouldn’t be
functional without it after three or four hours.”

Insulin is notoriously expensive in the U.S. — more than 10 times
the cost in other countries, according to one study.
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Kleck, a nurse practitioner at a community health clinic in Santa
Cruz, where half of her patients worry about affording their insulin,
said some are forced to “ration” their insulin in a dangerous
attempt to save money.Two new state policies that are expected to pull
the cost of insulin back down to earth have thrilled Kleck and others
with diabetes in California.Gov. Gavin Newsom
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a Democrat, kickstarted a plan in 2020 to contract the manufacturing
of California’s own insulin and sell it for less. That strategy,
though behind schedule, is finally bearing fruit: Generic insulin
branded “CalRx” will reach the market in January, at the
more-affordable price of $55 for about a month’s supply. In 2019,
the average person with diabetes paid about $82 per month. It’s the
first time a U.S. state will sell its own insulin.

In October, Newsom signed a separate law
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limits health insurance co-pays and deductibles for insulin to $35 a
month. The governor vetoed a version of that bill in 2023
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angering some Democrats and diabetes advocates, but he reversed course
this year. Depending on their health plan, Californians will see the
benefits this January or in January 2027.Two state lawmakers from the
Bay Area pushed the bill across the finish line this year: Sen. Scott
Wiener of San Francisco and Sen. Aisha Wahab of the East Bay and
Silicon Valley, both Democrats.The California-brand insulin and co-pay
cap “complement each other so well to give Californians more
affordable options than ever before,” said Christine Fallabel, a
policy executive for the Virginia-based American Diabetes
Association.But the plans have some limits. So far, the state is only
offering one type of insulin: glargine, a long-acting medication that
isn’t the main insulin used by many with the most common form of
diabetes, Type 2, and all people living with Type 1 diabetes.
California’s drug partnership is working on getting a fast-acting
insulin to market for those patients.And the market for insulin has
changed fast. Since 2023, drug companies have cut costs voluntarily,
spurred by government interventions like California’s. Before that,
in 2019, about 9% of people with diabetes were paying a whopping $315
per month, KFF Health News reported.Prices for insulin are sky-high
overall in the U.S., even though the medication is inexpensive for
drug companies to produce. But the actual cost borne by those with
diabetes can vary wildly depending on their access to health
insurance, the fine print of different health plans and the kind of
insulin they use.Christine Christensen, who lives in Danville, said
her son Jack was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2017. He is now 19
and studying at Notre Dame University.For now, Jack is covered by his
parents’ Anthem health insurance, and a three-month supply of
insulin costs the family $180, Christensen said. But she said her son
is anxious about his costs after he turns 26, when he’ll need to
obtain his own insurance.Roughly a quarter of the 8 million Americans
who use insulin are forced to ration because they can’t afford it,
according to a 2025 Yale School of Medicine study
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The risks of that are serious: diabetic shock, blindness, lost limbs,
heart attacks and death.“You shouldn’t have to have health
insurance charging you exorbitant amounts when you know it really
doesn’t cost that,” Christensen said.Newsom’s health policy
chiefs say California-branded insulin will be more affordable because
it is produced without a profit motive, unlike that made by large,
for-profit pharmaceutical companies.Producing the insulin is Civica
Rx, a Utah nonprofit that manufactures generic versions of drugs, to
which the state awarded a $50 million contract. Civica will receive
the profits of drug sales, which “are intended to cover the costs of
insulin production going forward,” said Andrew DiLuccia, a
spokesperson for the California Department of Health Care Access and
Information.CalRx has already offered reduced-price naloxone, the
life-saving medication that reverses opioid overdoses. And the state
gained new legal authority in June to purchase brand-name drugs. That
may include medication abortion pills
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the governor’s office said. 

* California
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* Health Insurance; High Drug Costs; Medicare for All
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