A good documentary about the issues can be found here, High Insulin Prices Drive Diabetics to Take Extreme Measures
The main project website can be found here, http://openinsulin.org/
Running a research/manufacturing set-up would be an ideal candidate project to run as a co-operative, owned and run by the people that need Insulin.
As mentioned in the documentary, getting FDA approval for medicines is biased towards the large manufacturers, which is why they have the oligopolistic behaviours that are exhibited in the USA drug markets. However people have the right to choose what they put into their bodies, provided they are not explicitly banned by the law.
Getting FDA approval is expensive and difficult, but if the diabetic patients are the ones who are owning and running the manufacturing for themselves, all they would have to do is to guarantee that the Quality of Manufacturing is up to the required standards, and they would be legally allowed to use the medicines, as they would be using their own property.
Creating a template set-up for an Insulin Manufacturing Co-operative, would be an ideal test project for every patient that needs medicines that may not be available if Brexit takes place.
I personally need very strong epilepsy medication, and i’m worried about maintaining my supplies.
I have no idea about the legalities of doing this in the UK, and i have no idea about how to get started, but i would be willing to chip in to get a pilot project off the ground.
Would anyone else be interested in doing this?