Congress has made a bipartisan commitment to curb the number of deaths from the opioid epidemic, but lawmakers may need to wade into a controversial area if they want to succeed: high drug prices.
Advocates have been clamoring for congressional action to help local agencies deal with the high price of an overdose antidote. The pleas come at a time when more Americans are becoming concerned about the prices of prescription drugs.
Naloxone is a generic drug that has been around for decades and can save people who are in the throes of a drug overdose. Local governments across the country have been pursuing programs to increase use of the drug as overdoses have soared.
About 16,000 people in 2013 died from prescription painkiller overdoses and more than 8,200 died from heroin overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But over the past several years the price has soared, causing problems for localities that want to give the drug to first responders such as police officers and emergency medical technicians.
Take Baltimore, which has about 19,000 active heroin users and many more prescription drug abusers.
The city wants to expand the use of the drug to as many police officers as possible, but cost has been a problem, said Lena Wen, Baltimore City health commissioner.
The price per dose has quadrupled over the past two years, “meaning that we can only save a quarter of the lives we could have saved,” Wen told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing Tuesday.
“Manufacturers have claimed that this price increase is related to increased demand,” Wen said. “However, it is unclear why the cost of a generic medication that is available for much lower costs in other countries will be suddenly so expensive.”
The price of the drug rose in Maryland from $19 per dose last year to $41 in 2015, according to Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., which has been investigating the price for the past year.
Price increases have fluctuated across the country. Earlier this year, Georgia reported the price of a naloxone kit rose from $22 to $40, according to the advocacy group Phoenix House.
Lawmakers said naloxone is not the only drug to experience such increases.
“It is something we as a Congress have to address across the board,” said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., during the hearing.
Wen called for lawmakers to join an investigation spearheaded by Cummings and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., into the price.
High drug prices have become a rising concern for Americans. While some of the attention has been focused on high prices for brand name specialty drugs to treat cancer or hepatitis C, generic drugs also have received scrutiny.
There have been several documented increases of older drugs by manufacturers, mainly because there is no other generic competition that can drive down prices.
Take the anti-parasite drug Daraprim, whose price increased 5,000 percent earlier this year. Drug manufacturer Turing, which acquired Daraprim in August, was able to raise the price from $13.50 to $750 partly because the drug has no competition.
Despite polls showing the issue is a concern for Americans, Congress has not taken up wholesale reforms to curb high prices. It did include a requirement for generic drug rebates for Medicaid in the recent two-year deal that raised the debt limit.
California-based Amphastar, a major manufacturer of naloxone, recently raised the price of it.
Naloxone generated $10.5 million in sales in the third quarter, up from $3.7 million during the same period in 2014, according to the company’s latest financial filings.
Amphastar did not return a request for comment on the price of the drug.
Another manufacturer is Kaleo, a small biotechnology firm in Virginia that offers naloxone in a single-use and easy-to-use injector that could be administered by a family member.
The company did not return a request for comment on sales of the drug, called Evzio, but reports have said the drug kit costs about $500 before discounts through insurance or rebates.
