Portman: Naloxone price was hiked 600%

WASHINGTON — A report released Sunday by Sen. Rob Portman accuses a major drug company of taking advantage of the opioid epidemic to dramatically raise the price of a drug used to revive people who have overdosed on opioids. Portman

The report claims the pharmaceutical company Kaleo increased the price of the naloxone drug EVZIO by more than 600 percent by 2016. The report also says the company encouraged physicians to make certain the drug was paid for by taxpayers who finance Medicaid and Medicare.

The drug does not cure addiction to opioids. But it can save lives by reviving people who are near death from an opioid overdose.

The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — which is chaired by Portman — was made public Sunday during the regular broadcast of CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

Portman, R-Ohio, said in a statement that “the fact that one company dramatically raised the price of its naloxone drug and cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in increased drug costs, all during a national opioid crisis no less, is simply outrageous.”

Portman said the subcommittee “will continue its efforts to protect taxpayers from drug manufacturers that are exploiting loopholes in the Medicare and Medicaid system in order to profit from a national opioid crisis.”

The synthetic opioid fentanyl and related drugs killed 3,431 people in Ohio last year.

The report charges that to boost “sluggish sales” of EVZIO at its price of $575, the company “implemented a new distribution model proposed" by a consultant "that increased the price by more than 600 percent by 2016.”