LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed an application to appeal an order preventing her from investigating Eli Lilly and Company’s insulin pricing practices.
Eli Lilly and Company is one of the top three companies producing insulin in the nation.
In January 2022, Nessel launched an investigation into the company. The action sought to use the Michigan Consumer Protection Act to investigate Eli Lilly and Company’s pricing practices for insulin.
Eli Lilly and Company used past decisions of the Michigan Supreme Court to claim the Michigan Consumer Protection Act doesn’t apply to their sale of insulin, halting the investigation.
The Attorney General is now asking the Supreme Court to reverse those decisions because they are not supported by a plain reading of the law.
“The Smith v. Globe Life Ins. Co. and Liss v. Lewiston-Richards, Inc. decisions have been used to frustrate consumer protection efforts for far too long,” Nessel says.
“It is unconscionable for Michigan residents to have to choose between life-saving medicine and food or rent. My Consumer Protection Team stands ready to hold drug companies accountable for their unjustifiable prices, but we can only do so if we are not being hindered by court decisions that misapply the text of a law having a purpose obvious from its name,” she continued.
The Michigan Consumer Protection Act was enacted in 1976, and Attorney General Nessel is hopeful the legislature will update the statute.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that there are 34.2 million Americans with diabetes and that those with diabetes have medical expenses approximately 2.3 times higher than those who do not.
In Michigan, the American Diabetes Association estimates that over a million residents have diabetes.
