barriers for medical professionals to prescribe naloxone to family members and friends of an opioid user and also supports “Good Samaritan” legisla- tion that would, in certain situations, legally protect drug users who request emergency assistance for a fellow user who overdoses. TMA wants to con- tinue working with lawmakers to de- velop a Good Samaritan law for Texas. The national prevalence of opioid
overdoses got lawmakers in Washing- ton, DC, involved this year. In mid- July, following calls from President Barack Obama for $1.1 billion in fund- ing to fight opioid addiction, Congress passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which includes ex- panded access to naloxone for law en- forcement agencies and first respond- ers. The bill did not include funding for the measure, which congressional
Republicans said would come later this year, according to reports.
PRICE PROBLEMS Along with opioid overdose deaths, federal lawmakers have taken a keen interest in something else climbing to troubling new heights: naloxone prices. In June, Politico reported prices
of some versions of naloxone had in- creased by as much as 17-fold since 2014. That same month, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) announced they had written to five pharmaceutical companies to find out what the com- panies were doing to “ensure contin- ued and improved access to naloxone,” to prompt the companies to explain the price changes, and to describe the resources they had to prevent access problems and shortages. The Los Angeles Times reported
in July the companies had separately defended their naloxone prices. One manufacturer, Kaléo, had increased the wholesale price of its naloxone auto-injector to $4,500, a dramatic hike from a $690 wholesale price in 2014. Kaléo said it increased the price for its version of the drug, Evzio, af- ter it decided to cover patient copays, the Times reported. Lora Grassilli, a spokesperson for Kaléo, told the Times the company had donated auto- injectors to more than 250 companies and that the list price was “not a true net price to anyone.” She said Kaléo had offered customers discounts and rebates. “It is a concern,” Mr. Hudman said
of the price hikes. “And it’s very dis- appointing that that has occurred because I know initially, when we started working on the standing or- der, [with] the automated version, we understood it was somewhere around the $2,000 range for two dosages. I re- cently just had a pharmacist quote me $4,000. That’s unfortunate because the goal of getting it into people’s hands is obviously going to be impact- ed by cost. And if people can’t afford it,
52 TEXAS MEDICINE September 2016
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