Massive Price Hike for Lifesaving Opioid Overdose Antidote
Suddenly in demand, naloxone injector goes from $690 to $4,500
By Shefali Luthra — Kaiser Health News on February 2, 2017
Credit: Andrew Burton Getty Images
First came Martin Shkreli, the brash young pharmaceutical entrepreneur who raised the price for an AIDS treatment by 5,000 percent. Then, Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, who oversaw the price hike for its signature Epi-Pen to more than $600 for a twin-pack, though its active ingredient costs pennies by comparison.
Now a small Virginia company called Kaleo is joining their ranks. It makes an injector device that is suddenly in demand because of the nation’s epidemic use of opioids, a class of drugs that includes heavy painkillers and heroin.
Called Evzio, it is used to deliver naloxone, a life-saving antidote to overdoses of opioids. More than 33,000 people are believed to have died from such overdoses in 2015. And as demand for Kaleo’s product has grown, the privately held firm has raised its twin-pack price to $4,500, from $690 in 2014.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/massive-price-hike-for-lifesaving-opioid-overdose-antidote1/
