Sen. McCaskill Wants Answers From Makers Of Opiate Overdose Antidote
http://www.ozarksfirst.com/news/sen-mccaskill-wants-answers-from-makers-of-opiate-overdose-antidote
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., wants answers from five pharmaceutical companies that make the opiate overdose reversal drug known as Narcan.
Prices of some versions of the drug have risen as much as 17-fold in the past two years.
Naloxone, better known as Narcan, has been on the market in the U.S. since 1971, but prices are increasing at a time when deaths from opiate overdoses are hitting record numbers.
Mccaskill said there may be a good reason for the price increases, but given the drug’s ability to save lives, she wants to see if they are really necessary.
CoxHealth Outreach and Injury Prevention Coordinator Jason Martin has administered Narcan hundreds of times to patients in ambulances and in the emergency room.
He has been using it to save lives since 1992.
“If it is indeed an opiate overdose then essentially within 30 seconds to a minute you’ll see their respiratory rate increase or start again and see instant changes in their level of consciousness,” Martin said.
At CoxHealth, the pharmacy department has not noticed an increase in the price of the drug yet and Martin says CoxHealth has never run out of it.
But McCaskill says she has heard from other hospitals around the country that cannot keep up with the demand.
“We’ve had to use it a lot more than we ever have with the prescription overdoses on the increase as well as heroin exploding in this area as far as usage so we’re starting to use it up a lot more,” Martin said. “We at Cox have not had an issue with that but I know in other areas they’ve had problems with keeping it stocked.”
McCaskill wrote to five pharmaceutical companies who make Narcan.
In two years, Kaleo Pharma’s auto-inject version of the drug went from $575 to $3,750 for a two dose package.
Hospira charged $1.84 for two vials of its generic in 2005, that went up to $31.66 by 2014.
“Now that it’s going to become available in some states even without a prescription, then unfortunately I think we’re going to see prices increase,” Martin said. “And that’s frustrating because it’s a drug that’s needed in our community unfortunately and it’s something that can save a life and you’d hate to see price dictate whether or not a life was saved.”
McCaskill said she wants answers from the pharmaceutical companies by June 23.
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