I did an interview with a local pharmacist named Joe Smith at Horton’s Drugs. Horton’s Drugs is a locally owned pharmacy in downtown Athens. In the business world, there has been a price hike in Epipens, a life-saving injector used for those with severe allergies. I worked on localizing the story for the Red&Black and did an interview with a pharmacist downtown.

 

me: Hi. I just want to know about Epipens. I read recently that Epipens are getting quite expensive. Over the last decade, people have seen a 400 percent price increase. I was wondering, since you’re a pharmacist, if you could comment on that.

Smith: We’ve seen people who have gone away empty handed because they couldn’t afford them, and that’s unusual with medicine. There’s nothing else in that segment. There was another pen called…are you familiar with that?

me: yeah, there’s a second producer but there was something wrong with the mechanism so they dropped out of the market.

Smith: It didn’t work right so, so yeah it’s been very disappointing. What other kinds of things are you looking for?

me: Actually, something like that. Could you tell me about the alternatives? I heard epinephrine itself is not very expensive.

Smith: It’s not. It’s getting it in a sterile formulation that you can eject.

me: So is there an alternative?

Smith: Well certainly you can get a vial of it and draw it up and inject it yourself but that wouldn’t be useful if you’re going into anaphalactic shock. You need something that’s easy to carry around and easy for a stranger to use.

me: So it’s not like you could not have an Epipen and just wait to call an ambulance?

Smith: No no. It certainly isn’t. I’d say that any patient that’s allergic to bee stings with insurance that doesn’t cover the Epipen is in danger by these high prices.

me: Are insurances not required to cover Epipens?

Smith: Well they are. And so there was an alternative for a little bit, Auvi-Q, the one with the mechanism that didn’t work…the manufacturer gave out coupons because they thought it was important to keep their prices more affordable with a competitor on the market. But since the recall occurred, they haven’t given out any coupons. Insurances just need to cover one of them, and a lot of them just cover Auvi-Q even though they’re off the market now.

me: Okay

Smith: Inspite of insurance reform, not everyone has insurance. There are people who come in, can’t afford it, and so they walk away.

me: wow. So currently there are no coupons that they can use?

Smith: Not unless they have one of the old ones.

me: Okay. At this current time, in Athens, about how much does an Epipen cost? I looked online and some of them are like $600-$800.

Smith: Well, um. You know, we’re an independent pharmacy so our prices are set locally. They’re based on what we paid our distributor. Which is what they pay their manufacturer. So our prices are a little bit different from other pharmacies. We are able to sell them for close to $300.

me: really? So Horton’s sells them for like $300, but CVS is selling them for $600, $700?

Smith: That’s right.

me: So is it Mylan that’s doing this? Or is this the pharmacy? Because you’d expect them to have lower prices because they’re buying them in bulk.

Smith: Well, they’re selling them in bulk too. If someone is already steered toward CVS by their insurance or they’re out of town and don’t know where to go, then they’re gonna buy the Epipen from that store. CVS has a huge marketing…I don’t want to say scam, but CVS has a huge marketing budget and that marketing is paid for by drugs like Epipens that are being sold for twice as much as we’re selling them for.