The price for an injectable drug touted as an antidote for opioid overdoses has jumped more than 600%, prompting outrage from first responders to health advocates to the U.S. Senate.
As USA Today reports, Evzio contains naloxone, which saves the lives of people who are overdosing. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medication is designed to be used by people who don’t have medical training, such as police officers and families who have relatives with substance-abuse problems.
The price for Evzio, which is an important tool to deal with the U.S. opioid crisis, jumped from $690 in 2014 to $4,500 now.
That’s against the backdrop of a huge rise in the number of prescription opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. The figure has quadrupled since 1999, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During that period, more than 183,000 people died.
On Wednesday, 31 U.S. senators sent a letter to Kaléo Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Evzio, to complain. “Such a steep rise in the cost of this drug threatens to price out families and communities that depend on naloxone to save lives,” the letter reads.
The uproar mirrors that surrounding the huge price increases for the EpiPen, an epinephrine auto-injector that is used on people in the midst of life-threatening allergic reactions, and the toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim, used by people who have AIDS, cancer or a weakened immune system.
