The patent for insulin was sold for just $1.Before the early 1920s, a diagnosis of diabetes was essentially a death sentence.

The patent for insulin was sold for just $1.Before the early 1920s, a diagnosis of diabetes was essentially a death sentence. The only available “treatment” was a harsh starvation diet that merely extended life by a few agonizing months.That changed forever when Canadian physician Frederick Banting, along with medical student Charles Best, Professor J.R.R. McLeod, and chemist James Collip, successfully isolated and purified insulin at the University of Toronto.On January 23, 1923, the team was awarded the patent rights for their discovery. Instead of profiting from it, Banting and his colleagues sold the patents to the University of Toronto for the symbolic price of one dollar each.Banting famously declared: “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world.”This selfless act ensured that the life-saving treatment would remain accessible to everyone, not just those who could afford it.Science and facts💡