Following Mylan’s controversial business choice to hike the price of the EpiPen up 400% to over $600, medical trailblazers are finding ways to challenge the greedy company with cheaper alternatives.
Mark Baum is the CEO of Imprimis Pharmaceuticals renowned for offering a $1 version of Daraprim, the AIDS medication that Martin Shkreli made 5,000% more expensive than its original cost.
Baum has expressed shame over the company’s decision to gouge the public on such an important medical expense considering the main ingredient, epinephrine, costs only a few dollars without the auto-injector.
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Baum’s developers hope to have the allergy treatment ready by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Dr. Douglas McMahon from the Allergy and Asthma Center of Eagan, Minnesota has started crowdfunding a $50 version of the EpiPen on Indiegogo with a $200,000 goal to complete quality testing and gain FDA approval.
The alternative he calls AllergyStop is a product he’s been tinkering with for several years now.
Not only does he want to make the medication cheaper and more available to allergic patients in need, but he wants to make it smaller and easier to handle as well.
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“I’ve been working on this for many years,” McMahon told WCCO. “I actually have severe food allergies myself, so I’ve needed to carry an Epinephrine device for many years. Throughout that process I’ve realized the current device is really big and cumbersome, to the point where I hardly ever carried it.”
Though the campaign has only raised about 2% of its goal, it still has one more month for backers to contribute.
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