Kmart has announced that its pharmacy division is cutting the price of a generic competitor to the anti-allergy EpiPen,: Andrenaclick generic auto-injector devicewill cost $0 for insured customers, and $199.99 ( before it costed $573.79 ) for cash-paying customers.
“The new low price of Adrenaclick is possible through Kmart’s lowered pricing, combined with a manufacturer’s coupon.”
“When the price of epinephrine skyrocketed, Kmart understood the critical impact it would have on our customers and worked to make access affordable,” said Jennifer Speares Lehman, director of compliance and administration for Kmart Pharmacy, a unit of Sears Holdings.
The brand-name version EpiPen sells for $642.69 for a two-pack, while a “generic” version of EpiPen sells $330 at Kmart Pharmacy. The two products sold by pharmaceuticals giant Mylan are the same a part from the packaging.
The company introduced its generic version of EpiPen in December at half the price of the brand-name version, in response to criticism over the price rise of about 500% ( from $90 of decade ago to more than $600 by 2016).
Both Andrenaclick and EpiPen contain the drug epinephrine, which is used to counteract the potentially fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis.
Kmart’s move comes follow policy implemented by its competitor CVS Pharmacy. Furthermore since January the major health insurer Cigna no longer covers customers’ purchases of the brand-name EpiPen. Cigna, however, but only the generic EpiPen.
Following these new policies and also the release on the market of Epi Pen competitor Auvi-Q from Kaleo, in March, the health-care data company AthenaHealth reported that prescriptions for alternatives to EpiPen had quadrupled since the start of 2017.
Source: CNBC
