Generic Tresiba (Degludec) and Generic Novolog (Aspart): Gone Soon

Medicines
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I’ve been trying to post this for a while, but have had trouble posting a new topic. Hopefully it will work this time.

I was surprised when I discovered this since I haven’t seen mention of this anywhere. But maybe that is simply because everyone else already knew this?

Anyway, the news is that Novo Nordisk will no longer be distributing its currently available generic forms of insulin. This means that as of January 1, 2026 you may not be able to purchase Insulin Aspart (generic Novolog) or Insulin Degludec (generic Tresiba). I have been on both these generic insulins for a couple years because these were covered by my Medicare part D plan for a monthly $35 payment, all other insulins being much higher cost.

I suspect this change might be behind the reason that Tresiba/Degludec will be hard to find Medicare Part D coverage next year (only one Humana plan in my state next year).

I asked at a couple different pharmacies if they knew about this and knew whether sales would stop on 12/31/25 or whether there might be some availability into next year, but they did not know (“there are too many drugs to keep track of”).

Here is the website and notice. BTW, I checked that this website is actually owned by Novo Nordisk (it is). https://www.nnpi.com/

Discontinuation Notice

Please be aware Novo Nordisk is providing more than one-year advance notice that all unbranded biologics distributed by Novo Nordisk Pharma, Inc. (NNPI) will be discontinued on December 31, 2025.

An unbranded biologic insulin is equivalent to its branded alternative. With the reduction in prices of our branded insulins, the need for these unbranded biologic products will become redundant. Novo Nordisk branded insulins will have the same, or lower, list prices than the unbranded biologics being discontinued.

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Frigg, that sucks.

Thanks for sharing @jag1

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I concur, that is an official announcement by Novo. So far as I can see it is not Medicare specific; Novo was just stopping the fiction of offering “generic” versions of their branded products at a lower price.

They did this because the Wyden bill, which reduced the cost of an insulin to $35/month on Medicare, made their use of the discount program for those people who aren’t old fogies like me redundant. It’s not news; it happened when the Wyden bill was passed.

There’s no change; Novo dropped the price of the branded product to match the changing circumstances and the nnpi.com fiction became irrelevant.

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No, it is absolutely NOT Medicare specific, and I didn’t try to imply it was. I was talking about the impact on Medicare members simply because that is where my personal experience is coming from.

Trying to figure out other private (non Medicare) insurance plans is not easy for me to do, but I would assume that there might be some employer insurance plans that cover generic insulins with a much cheaper copay than they do name brand insulins - in which case diabetics on those plans could also face sticker shock if they want to stay on Tresiba/Degludec or Novolog/Aspart after the first of the year.

This is not related to the Wyden bill, that happened a couple years before the Novo decision. What connection do you see?

On medicare what I’ve observed is that each Medicare part D provider chooses which insulins they provide for $35, and which they don’t (part of the formulary). While Novo was marketing their insulins as generic as well as name brands, several part D providers offered generic Tresiba (insulin Degludec) as one of their $35 insulins. But this year (2026) there is only one part D provider offering (name brand) Tresiba - Humana Premier. Anyone on any other part D plan will be paying a lot more than $35 a month for Tresiba next year. Hopefully there will be more plans offering Tresiba as one of their $35 insulins in 2027, but who knows?

I don’t understand why you say there is “no change” - there is certainly a big change for anyone on medicare who was buying generic Tresiba for $35 per month, since it will soon be going to about $200 a month on any plan other than Humana Premier.

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Stopping delivery of Insulin Aspart (generic label for Novolog) could be problematic for those of us with T1D and using pumps/cgms. My Medicare Coverage (since 2015) has all been “traditional Medicare” of Part A & B and my supplemental.

All my pump, cgm supplies are fully covered and that includes “generic” Insulin Aspart for the pump. I pay $0.00 for my insulin as it is considered a DME item due to my pump usage.

I have mostly used Novolog, but was switched to Insulin Aspart when Medicare made some rule changes. Granted it is the same product and only a ‘label’ change so not a big deal.

What will be interesting is to what Medicare will approve for DME coverage going forward?

Will be interesting to see how this change floats out to us pump folks on traditional Medicare.

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Yes, seems there could be some impact for this group as well. It really depends on how the DME pump rule was written, and whether providers are allowed to choose which insulins for use in pumps are covered, or if all must be covered. The good news for Insulin Aspart users, if Novolog will not be covered, is that Humalog and it’s generics usually have almost identical action, so changing is not usually problematic.

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I disagree with that.

For injections, yes it’s basically the same.

But when it comes to a pump, there is a big difference. This post references a lot of studies that show the difference.

FUD - effectiveness-of-novolog-vs-humalog-in-a-pump

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Thank for posting that thread. Reading it I remembered that when I used Humalog all last year I would get occasional occlusion alerts with insulin delivery stopped. I was able to restart insulin ok. This has not been an issue in 2025 with Novolog.

With Humalog day 3 control was less effective when I mentioned earlier. The occlusion issue just came to mind after reading the post.

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Ah, well, something I don’t have personal experience with then, though I have read studies stating there is an eventual difference in occlusion rate, but only if extended beyond three days. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19885209/ Clearly, though, you experienced otherwise so I understand your reluctance change to Humalog. I would do the same as you if I started on a pump.

So at this point I think it is too early to predict what impact this change will have on the US insulin marketplace and insurance coverage. It is possible that Novolog will not lose any insurance coverage, perhaps because it has to be competitive with Humalog generic prices. Novolog also has only one unexpired patent (Tresiba has 20), so that could also help keep Novo from overpricing their Novolog.

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One of the interesting things about the Novo/Huma comparison - @CarlosLuis, maybe you can verify this. I can’t because I don’t have a Tandem!

Doesn’t the Tandem user guide give different durations for Novolog vs Humalog? Like what does Tandem say for how long you can keep an infusion set with the different insulins?

I recall someone once mentioned that Tandem actually gives a time difference between the two. Is that true?

I thinks it’s pretty compelling if a pump company is actually stipulating a difference.

I have had to fight this battle before. Insurance companies don’t seem to care that there can be a difference. It’s idiotic, because the two insulins essentially cost the same. It makes no sense that an insurance company can dictate which one you use!

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The notice appeared on the website between February and March this year but it has always said that notice was given before December 31, 2024. I can’t find the actual press release (I thought I had found it yesterday but I can’t find it again) and I wouldn’t be able to find the notice to HCPs.

The Wyden cap went into effect on January 1, 2023 for Part D and July, 2023 for Part B (where it’s somewhat more complex). It did not change the legal requirements for private insurance, however my individual ACA plan from moda charged me $80 for a 30 day supply of Fiasp in February 2023 but dropped to $35/month I think at the start of 2025.

CNN has an analysis:

NNPI.com existed in 2004 but it went into hyperdrive in 2020, apparently because of the insulin price issue. The web page, which seems to have been inaccessible in 2016, first appears around (shortly before?) May 2020:

My point is that the knock-on effect of the Wyden bill, starting in 2023, removed the point of nnpi.com. By the time this announcement was made:

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Major Developments in Bringing Most-Favored-Nation Pricing to American Patients – The White House.

Insulin costs had already dropped for many if not most people with and without insurance.

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A screenshot of the manual, I’m one of those people who reads user guides and manuals, but they are increasingly less informative. This is in general not Tandem specifically.

IMG_2118
IMG_2118875×590 117 KB

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That’s happened to Fiasp/Lyumjev as well. The Part D formularies have to swap to the best deal, so they are only going to offer one, if that. IRC my current (2025) Part D provider dropped both and only UNH offered Lyumjev in 2026.

If the drug isn’t in the formulary it isn’t covered by any cap and it isn’t covered by the $2,000 (2025) out of pocket limit. I was being quoted around $11,000 a year for insulin when I looked at Part D this year. My understanding is that the formulary exception moves the excepted item back into the out-of-pocket payments so the amount we pay in addition to the specific Part D premiums is still limited to $2,000 (well, $2,100 in 2026.)

I don’t see why you say that; your pump supplier will just swap to the brand-name. The Medicare formulary itself still includes everything so Medicare will pay for the brand name. It might end up paying more (there seems to be some kind of kick-back associated with the $35 cap) but we won’t.

I suspect there might be a problem with the DME pump supplier being able to choose the insulin supplied with the pump but I’ve yet to hear anyone complain of that. So far as I know in general DME supplies are the choice of the DME supplier; does anyone get an arbitrary choice of catheter/infusion set from their DME provider?

Even that isn’t clear to me (well, it’s Medicare, very little is clear). Isn’t it just the case that the DME supplier bills Medicare the negotiated rate for any specific insulin? The problem the supplier has is that if no one else uses that insulin getting a decent stock cheaply might be a big problem.

What you pay depends on your supplement. If you got the supplement right (the correct plan) it’s $257/year for everything ($283 next year) unless you are old enough to get a “C” or “F” supplement in which case it’s zero, for everything; pump, docs, insulin, fluffy toy, anything Medicare covers under Part B.

The nominal price, which on more recent plans you will see paid before the $257 deductible was met, is $35/month/insulin-variety. That just means $35/month because pumps only take one sort of insulin at a time.

The only approval issue I’ve been aware of is for the Omnipod because there wasn’t a “code” for a disposable pump under Part B. Insulet gave up and Omnipods are now on Part D, which costs quite a lot ($2,000) more per year.

It looks like the EverSense CGM has been approved for Part B because there seems to be a new billing code for it (best government money can buy etc.) twiist haven’t even tried to get a billing code but I find it incredibly difficult to believe that they wouldn’t get one; it’s just yet-another tubed pump!

Moving to a rental model in 2028 won’t, so far as I can tell, change anything for us.

None of this applies to Part C; Part C guys are at the whim of their particular insurance company. The relevant point is that while Part B cannot restrict providers Part C plans can. I.e. a Part C can limit the docs we see, the insulin we use (like Part D) and, I assume, the pumps we use.

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This is very bad news for all of us :frowning: The “With the reduction in prices of our branded insulins, the need for these unbranded biologic products will become redundant.” section is simply untrue for every case. It is only true for some cases.

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