The Open Insulin Project
The price of insulin has doubled between 2012 and 2016 with the few suppliers of insulin raising prices in near-synchrony. The Open Insulin Project is creating an open source (freely available) model for insulin production that centers sustainable, small-scale manufacturing and open source alternatives to production. We are developing organisms and protocols to produce rapid acting (lispro) and long acting (glargine) insulin.
We will also develop open hardware equivalents to proprietary production equipment, research sustainable regulation pathways to bring our insulin to the public, and complete plans for local, small-scale manufacturing pilots. We envision a world in which communities in need have local sources of safe, affordable, high-quality insulin, and where people living with diabetes and their communities can own and govern the organizations that produce the medicine they depend on to survive.