OBJECTIVES: Different insulin regimes may have different efficacy that can be balanced by higher dosing, which means higher costs. Payers are considered to choose the more cost effective therapies, and pay less for the same efficacy results. Aim of our study was to determine the cost born on payers reimbursing basal analoge insulines. METHODS: We used two studies were designed to achieve the same clinical benefit, such as non-inferiority studies. This way the effectiveness will be the same and we could focus on costs only. Dose differences were multiplied with actual Hungarian costs of insulins RESULTS: We used an article by Rosenstock compared basal analogue insulins in BOT indication and another article by Hollander done on ICT indication. In the Rosenstock study patients required an average 31 unit higher daily insulin dose on detemir than on glargin, to achieve the same clinical effectiveness as there was no significant difference in terms of HbA1c levels. Using Hugarian drug costs, this higher dose with detemir related to an extra cost of HUF 111,887 per year. The case was the same with the Hollander study where detemir patients required on average 22.5 unit higher daily dose of basal insulins and 4.3 unit more rapid insulin on daily average. In the Hungarian health care system this gives an extra cost of HUF 94,182 on yearly average.    CONCLUSIONS:   In clinical trials detemir patients requires significantly more insulin than glargin patients to achieve the same clinical benefit, which would result in a significantly higher cost in the Hungarian health care system.