An early initiative with a serious mission
Ontario-based, independent, and honest about where it stands.
Who we are
The Austin Project is a founder-led public-health initiative based in Ontario, Canada. It exists because two problems that should never coexist do, every day: patients skip prescribed insulin they cannot afford, while safe, completely unopened insulin is thrown away.
We believe those two facts are not separate issues. They are two sides of the same broken system, and The Austin Project was created to work on both at once: immediate affordability through the Insulin Access Fund, and long-term system change through the Insulin Recovery Initiative.
Where we are today
The Austin Project is in its development phase, and we are deliberate about saying so. Right now the work is listening and learning: consulting people across diabetes care, pharmacy, and manufacturing, researching the assistance programs that already exist, refining our program models, and documenting the regulatory questions a safe insulin-recovery framework would have to answer.
We have chosen not to incorporate yet, on purpose. Structure should follow evidence and relationships, not precede them. Building the foundation properly matters more than appearing established.
The road ahead
- Now: stakeholder consultation, evidence gathering, and program design.
- Next: recruit founding directors and incorporate as an Ontario not-for-profit corporation, The Austin Project for Insulin Access.
- Then: apply to the Canada Revenue Agency for registered-charity status.
- Later: launch the Access Fund with manufacturer and donor partners, and pursue government-authorized recovery pilots.
This is an intended path, not a promise of timing. Each step depends on the evidence and support gathered in the one before it.
How we will operate
Some commitments are settled even at this early stage. Both efforts will run as internally restricted programs of one organization. Clinical decisions will always belong to prescribers and pharmacists, never to us. Funding partners, including insulin manufacturers, will never influence prescribing or receive preference for their products. And the project will always describe itself as exactly what it is, at every stage.
Get in touch
If you work in diabetes care, pharmacy, drug policy, or patient advocacy, your perspective can shape this project while it is still being designed. That is the best time to shape anything. Start a conversation.