Since 2009, the price of the EpiPen has increased more than 500 percent. New Jersey lawmakers are working on ways to make it a little more affordable for those who need them.
When you have a life-threatening allergy - bee stings, for example, or peanuts - you need to have the means immediately at hand to reverse the looming danger.
When your throat tightens, your tongue swells and each breath becomes a struggle, timing counts. For many people, only rapid treatment with the drug epinephrine, administered through an EpiPen, can stave off death.
But what if you can't afford the pens, which go for more than $620 per two-pack at your local pharmacy - roughly the cost of a high-end Coach bag or an iPhone? What if $620 is simply beyond your reach, even as a working family?
The nightmare scenario is on the minds of N.J. legislators, who have devised a limited approach to tackle the issue.
The full Assembly has unanimously approved a measure sponsored by Democrats Herb Conaway Jr. (Delran), Valerie Vainieri Huttle (Teaneck), Daniel Benson (Hamilton Square) and Angela McKnight (Jersey City) to make the devices more affordable by requiring them to be sold as single units, rather than in pairs.
N.J. lawmakers aim to combat soaring cost of EpiPens
"Since 2009, the price of the EpiPen has increased more than 500 percent, resulting in the inability of some families to afford this life-saving drug," Conaway, a practicing physician, said in a prepared statement. "Until more affordable, generic versions reach the market, this will help make this critical device more accessible."
It's a welcome measure, to be sure, but a stop-gap one. It does nothing to address the immoral choke-hold that Mylan, sole manufacturer of the EpiPen, has on a public that depends so desperately on its product.
As a recent Harvard Medical School blog points out, epinephrine is cheap: About $5 per milligram. The dose contained in an adult EpiPen is 0.3 milligrams. So why the obscene price gap?
Blame that old consumer bugaboo: Lack of competition.
As the Harvard publication points out, a similar product called Auvi-Q was pulled off the market when concerns arose that it wasn't delivering the right dose of medicine. Other alternatives are noticeably cheaper, but doctors rarely prescribe them because they're more difficult to use.
And while companies have been racing to develop alternatives to the EpiPen, none has warranted approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Mylan justifiably came under attack last summer for its most recent price hike. Since then, the pharmaceutical company has increased the level of financial assistance available to consumers, and also settled claims it had shortchanged the federal government in rebates to Medicaid for the pens.
Truly, this is a conversation that needs to go beyond the Statehouse in Trenton, however well-meaning the new measure is. The lives of too many children and adults cannot be subject to the whims of Big Pharma's bottom line.
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