Society has raised prices for drugs used to revive victims

WASHINGTON –

Sen. Rob Portman on Sunday released a report accusing a major pharmaceutical company of taking advantage of the opioid epidemic to dramatically increase the price of a drug used to revive people who have taken an overdose of drugs. # 39; opioids.

According to the report, the pharmaceutical company Kaleo has increased the price of naloxone-based EVZIO drug by more than 600% by 2016. The report also states that the company has encouraged doctors to make sure that the drug was paid for taxpayers who finance Medicaid and Medicare.

The drug does not cure opioid addiction. But it can save lives by reviving people who are on the verge of dying from opioid addiction.

RELATED: What Ohio did with the 26 million dollars of the federal government for the treatment of drug addiction

The report of the Senate's standing Senate Investigations Subcommittee, chaired by Portman, was released on Sunday during the regular broadcast of CBS's "60-minute" broadcast. Portman staff shared the report with CBS before forwarding it to Ohio news agencies.

Portman, R-Ohio, said in a statement that "the fact that one company has dramatically increased the price of its naloxone drug and cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in rising drug costs, all during a national opioid crisis – is simply scandalous. "

Portman said the subcommittee "will continue its efforts to protect taxpayers from drug makers exploiting the flaws of the Medicare and Medicaid systems in order to take advantage of a national opioid crisis."

Synthetic opioid fentanyl killed 3,431 people in Ohio last year.

According to the report, to boost EVZIO's "sluggish sales" at a price of $ 575, the company "has put in place a new distribution model proposed" by a consultant "that has increased the price of more than 600 % of here 2016 ".

In addition, the report accuses Kaleo's sales force of trying to ensure that doctors' offices sign the necessary documents stating that "EVZIO" was medically necessary, which ensured that the anti-overdose drug would be covered by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid ".

Kaleo's price increase was reported earlier this year by Bloomberg News. All drugs on the drug lists, called forms, must be approved by the pharmaceutical benefits or PIMs.

Healthcare companies are hiring these PBMs with the promise of keeping drug costs low. However, drug manufacturers benefit from rebates granted to drug manufacturers for adding drugs to forms.

In a statement, a spokesman for Kaleo said: "We are disappointed with the way some facts are presented and believe that this very complex story has much more to offer."

"We believe that two facts are essential to the EVZIO story," the company said. "Firstly, we have received voluntary reports from recipients of products offered that EVZIO has saved more than 5,500 lives since the product was launched in 2014. Second, we have never made any annual profit on the sale of our products. 39; EVZIO. The patients, not the profits, drove our actions. "

(Lucas Sullivan from Columbus Dispatch contributed to this story.)