The original research for the synthesis of insulin was actually done in Europe by a private citizen (not a government entity). That research was followed up on by a surgeon with a private practice in Canada, and only after a time was it taken to the U of Toronto. The work leading to a manufacturable insulin process was done in collaboration with another private citizen (not affiliated with the U of Toronto). The trio only decided to patent the discovery upon literal threat by Eli Lilly to steal it for sale. They then sold it to the U of Toronto for a single dollar because of a strong belief that it would have been ethically bankrupt to profit from the manufacture and distribution of such an important drug. Funny you left that out!

But anyway, to your main point, it's interesting you neglect to mention that the main manufacturers of "generic" insulin (there's actually no such thing, but that's a topic for a different time) are the same companies who manufacture the name brands. They do this for pure price discrimination reasons; the new "generics" you reference (Admelog/Insulin Aspart) are exact chemical duplicates of their higher priced cousins. They prevent other companies from creating their own "generics" through a process called "evergreening" where they change patents in small, insignificant ways while still maintaining the patent on the core product. They then force other manufacturers into pricing and distributorship deals in order to license these patents to prevent cannibalization of their own products. Most of these deals include strict price controls. Have you ever wondered why those regulatory controls are so strict? Maybe it's because of regulatory capture as a part of this complex system to artificially inflate drug prices. That would require more than a skin deep analysis relying on middle school free market ideology though.

This isn't even getting into the "manufacturer rebate" programs most drug companies have for, again, pure price discrimination and marketing reasons. Or the fact that for the same exact chemical formula insulin costs have increased over 10x in the past 20 years. This also doesn't address the fact that we're seeing 20% year over year increases in insulin prices while drug manufacturers post profit increases almost in lock step. Feel free to read their quarterly earnings reports, they state in plain black and white that they purposefully price insulin in accordance with how expensive it is to treat diabetes _without_ the drug. To quote John Lechleiter, the CEO of Eli Lilly, “Yes, they [referring to insulin] can be expensive, but disease is a lot more expensive”. I believe that's called "extortion", I wonder if getting rid of regulatory roadblocks can solve that problem.

There's also no such thing as insulin "side effects"... lower quality/old synthesis method insulin just doesn't work as efficiently which means you have to use more of it or can't use it in modern insulin pumps. Most insulin manufactured today is biologically identical to the insulin manufactured 10 years ago. Most of the quality of life improvements occurred long before the recent price surges.

But then again your post compares iPhones and Netflix with a drug that over a million Americans have to take in order to survive, so I doubt any of this will reach through your armor of specious and unserious speculation.