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Warning About Buying EpiPen Online to Deal with Shortages

by | Aug 16, 2018 | Drug Safety

EpiPen ShortageEpiPen, the emergency epinephrine auto-injector medicine, is in short supply in the U.S. and other countries, such as the U.K. and Canada. Now, parents of kids who need to carry around EpiPen Jr. are not just worried about the cost of EpiPen but if they can get it at all. If you are considering buying EpiPen online, here’s my warning:

Only Buy EpiPen from Verified Online Pharmacies

When it comes to fast-acting, life-saving products, buying online from a rogue online pharmacy can turn out to be deadly. If you get a fake or expired product, then it might not work. Enough said. The message is clear: do NOT buy from an online pharmacy that isn’t one associated with your neighborhood pharmacy. If you decide to buy online, stick to online pharmacies that are verified. That includes online pharmacies verified by us, PharmacyChecker, or LegitScript, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy VIPPS program, or the Canadian International Pharmacy Association.

You can buy brand-name EpiPen online from Canada using verified online pharmacies: a two pack for about $230.

Buy Generic EpiPen at U.S. Pharmacies

When it comes to cost and availability, you may not have to look internationally for savings. In the U.S., there’s a generic version made by the same company that makes the brand version, and it’s much less expensive. According to GoodRx, you can buy the generic with a discount coupon for almost half the price of the brand-name sold at Canadian online pharmacies: $125. The brand version in the U.S. is over $600!

Where are all the EpiPens?

According to Market Watch, manufacturing problems are causing EpiPen supply problems. The generic drug company, Mylan, has the license to market and sell EpiPen in the U.S. and Canada, but the brand-name drug company, Pfizer, owns and runs the plant that makes the drug. To make a very long story short, the FDA has cited problems with Pfizer’s protocols for assembling the drug. Pfizer is trying to up its game, but the process is taking some time.

There are epinephrine alternatives to EpiPen, brand and generic. They include Adrenally and Auvi-Q, which might be more affordable. Consumer Reports has a good article on these products, although I’m not sure about their current availability.

The Market Watch article suggests that you can still get the product, but they make it seem a lot more challenging than it should be. If you choose to buy it online, whether for availability or cost, stick to verified sites.

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FDA Focuses on Illegal Fentanyl Imports, Neglects Off-Label Prescribing

by | Aug 9, 2018 | FDA enforcement

FentanylThe FDA has made it it’s business to shine a bright light on the evils of illegal fentanyl imports, which are sometimes sold online. That focus seems like it’s a good one. Illegal fentanyl imports get into the hands of drug dealers who use the ingredients to make counterfeit, opioid-based drugs. They sell them to addicts who too often overdose and die. I’ve written a lot about the FDA’s crackdown on illegal fentanyl imports being misused to stop imports of prescription medicines on their way to American patients from Canada and other countries. However, something much more troubling actually has gone down over the past few years.

According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the John’s Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the FDA ignored information about off-label prescribing of the most dangerous prescription opioid drugs: fast-acting fentanyl or transmucosal immediate release fentanyl (TIRF). Those drugs were approved to treat the most serious pain experienced by cancer patients. Instead, drug companies encouraged off-label prescribing for patients experiencing lower levels of pain and certainly did not have terminal illnesses.

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Real Opioid Online Drug Dealers Indictment Unrelated to Rx Import Savings

by | Aug 1, 2018 | Drug Importation

Indictment of Evelin Bracy and Jorge Rodriguez Lopez Here’s a real story about online opioid drug dealers getting indicted and how pharma front groups conflate the opioid crisis with prescription drug importation. I write “real” to juxtapose rogue online pharmacies—that illegally sell addictive drugs—and safe international online pharmacies that don’t sell addictive drugs at all.

On July 9th, the U.S. Department of Justice for the Southern State of New York announced the indictment of Evelin Bracy and Jorge Rodriguez Lopez for illegal distribution of controlled drugs, including an analog of the opioid pharmaceutical Fentanyl – called U-47700. They are also accused of selling these drugs on the Internet from what the DOJ refers to as a website “purporting to be an online pharmacy.” The indicted parties were also alleged to have sold drugs under pharmaceutical names, oxycodone and alprazolam, that were found to have other ingredients, implying that the products were counterfeit. These counts can technically land a person in jail for 40 years.

If the allegations are true, then we’re dealing with bona fide drug pushers. The Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM), a Pharma-funded non-profit group that seeks to conflate such drug dealing and counterfeiting with pharmacies in other countries that sell affordable prescription medicines to people here in the U.S. PSM is keeping a web diary of law enforcement busts that help stop the deadly fentanyl trade, which is taking the lives of thousands of Americans each year. We applaud law enforcement for disrupting these opioid dealing operations and bringing their orchestrators to justice.

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