‘Free Insulin’: Fake $8 Twitter verification cost $15 billion to THIS pharma company; Read FULL story here

Eli Lilly is a US-based pharmaceutical company that manufactures insulin.

Elon Musk may have planned to increase Twitter's revenue by rolling out paid Blue subscription but he had to suspend the same following a flood of fake accounts getting paid verification. In one such instance, a fake account got verification by impersonating as a pharma company and what it did next sent the pharma company's stocks crashing. The company later issues a clarification but it was too late till then. The damage was done. 

What is the story all about?

Eli Lilly is a US-based pharmaceutical company that manufactures insulin. Eli Lily is one among the top three global producers of insulin. It already has a verified Twitter account with the handle @LillyPad. However, a fake account impersonating as Eli Lilly with a Twitter handle @EliLillyandCo paid $8 to Twitter to get its handle verified. Once it got the famous Blue tick, it tweeted that insulin is free now. "We are excited to announce insulin is free now," it tweeted. 

The fake tweet soon went viral and significantly affected the market capitalisation of Eli Lilly. The company's share dipped by over 4 per cent on Friday erasing over US $15 billion in market cap. 

This prompted the original company to come out with a clarification for its shareholders. “We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad,” it said.

However, Twitter later removed the account’s verification and set its tweets to private. 

We are sorry that you thought it could be free, not for making insulin crazy expensive pic.twitter.com/b7GVTZd4Kz — Fake Accounts Hall Of Fame (@FakeAccountsHOF) November 11, 2022

The fake tweet not only eroded the market cap of Eli Lilly but also affected the stock prices of Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, the other two manufacturers of insulin. According to reports, Novo Nordisk’s shares fell 3.2 per cent and Sanofi’s share fell by 4 per cent yesterday.

The whole incident again ignited the debate around higher insulin prices with people and leaders demanding that it should be made free. 

US Senator Bernie Sanders said that Eli Lilly should apologize for increasing the price of insulin. “Let's be clear. Eli Lilly should apologize for increasing the price of insulin by over 1,200% since 1996 to $275 while it costs less than $10 to manufacture. The inventors of insulin sold their patents in 1923 for $1 to save lives, not to make Eli Lilly's CEO obscenely rich,” he tweeted.

To this, Elon Musk replied, “Full answer to insulin price question is complex. Short answer is that original insulin, discovered in 1921 (not 1923), is inexpensive, costing as little as $25. New, higher efficacy analog variants of insulin are more expensive.”

Full answer to insulin price question is complex. Short answer is that original insulin, discovered in 1921 (not 1923), is inexpensive, costing as little as $25.

New, higher efficacy analog variants of insulin are more expensive. @CommunityNoteshttps://t.co/S4c0esI1vU — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022

The whole episode gave the Musk critics a chance to highlight the problem with Twitter’s new Blue tick subscription method.