EpiPen Price Surge Puts Pressure On Parents' Wallets For Life-Saving Tool
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — For someone with an allergy, an EpiPen can mean the difference between life and death, but they're getting harder to afford, even with insurance.
Every bite Dylan Frazier takes needs to be watched closely. The 9-year-old has severe food allergies.
"If we don't have an EpiPen, and he has a reaction, it could be deadly for him," his mother Kristen Frazier said.
She has a plan to make sure an epinephrine autoinjector is always near her son.
"One in his backpack to and from school incase anything happens on the school bus, in his classroom, in the cafeteria, I carry one at all times, my husband carries one, we have one in the sports bag," she said.
EpiPens are an injectible form of epinephrine, which can quickly reverse an allergic reaction. They're an absolute must for allergy patients, but they aren't getting cheaper.
"It has gone up significantly," she said. "I have noticed."
It would be hard not to notice. A twin-pack of EpiPens has gone from around $60 to more than $400 in the last 10 years.
"Pharmaceutical companies have really changed the way they price medications, used to be related to the impact of the medication," said Northwestern professor Todd Brown.
The phenomenon is only in the United States—in France, the same EpiPens go for $85.
Rep. Michael Capuano says there's no federal regulation on how high drug prices can go.
"We are stuck in the situation where if you have a drug that is unique, or more importantly controls a lot of the market, the epipen is one of those it is not unique but it controls about 80 to 85 percent of the market, they pretty much set their prices wherever they want to do," he said.
Dr. Mark DeMatteo is concerned some families may be forced to cut back.
"These events can progress at a very rapid pace, sometimes as quickly as 20 minutes, under those circumstances, having an epipen will be absolutely life saving," he said.
Frazier knows she's lucky her insurance covers a majority of her costs, but her copays still aren't cheap.
"I had a friend who recently had to pay $1,000 for the EpiPens she wanted," she said.
And she'll keep paying, because the stakes are that high.
In a statement, the manufacturer of EpiPens says it offers financial help to families who qualify and have provided free devices to more than 60,000 schools.
