Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/12/cvs-is-making-a-generic-epipen.html
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Let’s hope they don’t do as slipshod of a job on these than they do with their “herbal remedies”, which tested positive alarmingly often for ornamental houseplants.
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That’s much closer to the civilized price of: covered by insurance
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Wow, Heather Bresch’s failed ideas destroyed Epipen’s monopoly. I’m sure her pay will go way, way down now, That’s how business works, right?
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Hurrah! I just had my first ambulance ride as well as my first experience of anaphylaxis last weekend. I have never had allergies and have no idea what triggered it, but I hadn’t left home all day, so it was something (or things?) in my home. I have yet to consult with my regular doctor about whether I should do some allergy tests and whether an epipen carrying an epipen would make sense. Glad to a company sticking it to Mylan.
On a side note, my thoughts are with all the US-based happy mutants. My entire event - ambulance and hospital - cost me just over US$50 (5000 yen).
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Expect the Republicans to outlaw it
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Yeah… Even with medical insurance provided by my work, a 2 km ambulance ride to the hospital cost a colleague of mine $800+. For the privilege of being properly immobilized and taken to the hospital when he slipped a disk.
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Well you can’t blame CVS; isn’t that true of all herbals?
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Pretty much.
Steven Novella likes to say stuff to the effect of “Herbal remedies are no different than drugs, except they tend not to have science backing them up, and they are unregulated for purity and dosage. Like meth.”
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@taj
It is frequently difficult to figure out what caused an allergic reaction in a patient. Some things can take a few hours for a reaction to start, and so many people can not identify what caused it. If your reaction was bad enough that you needed medication to improve, carrying an epipen is a very low risk behavior over the next 12 months, especially if you live in a civilized country where medications are affordable (and since you used Yen, you probably do). Your Happy Mutant Registered Nurse.
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I don’t have any severe allergies that I’m aware of, and I have no relatives who do, so I was completely unaware of the price of an Epipen and on a first read I assumed that “$110 for 2 pens” was the original, non-discounted price of the product - that is, I thought CVS would be selling them for $22 a pair or so, which seemed eminently reasonable.
Do Epipens really cost $500+ per pair? That’s insane!
(I just checked, and they cost about A$38 a pair in Australia, where I live)
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What I have never understood is how the EpiPen achieved its near monopoly in the US. In Europe there is a direct competitor and not very surprisingly we didn’t see the same price hikes.
$110 is about what a single original EpiPen costs here.
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“This solution will be particularly beneficial for those insured patients who have consumer-directed health plans and have not yet met their deductible for the plan year.”
Reading the above in the article just made me think, “If I lived in America I would probably die from confusion over their Byzantine medical rules”. I’ve just got my fingers crossed that the Tories don’t get around to selling off the UK’s National Health Service to their friends and family.
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Apparently in the UK they’re £45 each! That’s bloody expensive for medical equipment.
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Yeah, they can’t allow the free market to destroy a perfectly good monopoly. 
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Sweep the leg?
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The part that’s baffled me is this: Epipens (or, more specifically, Auto-Injectors) were developed by the US Military with taxpayer money. So how does some private company end up with the patent?
That seems… nuts.
My do breakthroughs achieved via federal funding not automatically turn into public domain?
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Ornamental houseplants, like geraniums*? That would just mean that the herbal remedy was actually containing active ingredients with medicinal properties. (*Pelargonium is astringent, vasoconstrictive, anti-inflammatory.)
Many other houseplants or close natural relatives contain chemicals used by pharmacists.
I don’t use herbal remedies.
Well … besides hemp flowers. Because I can’t get ‘something better’ at the pharmacy.
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The USA currently has a lot of serious problems.
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Well, what was he doing slipping a disk? How dare he cheat the American tax payers that way! /s
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