'Children Are Dying': Sanders Pushes Pharma Giants to Cap Cost of Inhaler for Kids
"No child in America should be sick or die because their parents cannot afford or access the inhalers they need to breathe," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged a pair of pharmaceutical corporations to immediately slash the price tag of the generic version of the most commonly prescribed inhaler for children, continuing a pressure campaign that the Vermont Independent and his Democratic colleagues have been waging throughout the year with remarkable results.
Sanders' latest call was directed at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Prasco Laboratories, which sells the authorized generic of Flovent—an inhaler that GSK pulled from the U.S. market earlier this year.
In March, after the Sanders-led Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee launched an investigation into the high costs of inhalers, GSK announced it would join other companies in capping out-of-pocket costs for its asthma medications at $35 a month.
But GSK's pledge did not extend to Flovent's generic, which currently costs patients up to hundreds of dollars per month. Prasco Laboratories sells the generic product under a deal with GSK.
"Unfortunately, the retail price of this inhaler is between $172 and $313, and many insurance companies are refusing to cover it because the net price is more expensive than the brand-name version of Flovent," Sanders noted in a statement Tuesday. "Facing high prices and a lack of insurance coverage, families throughout the country are having a very difficult time purchasing inhalers for their children."
"The result: Pediatricians have observed a major increase in the number of children with asthma who have been admitted to hospitals," Sanders continued. "There are also reports that more children are dying. That is absolutely unacceptable. No child in America should be sick or die because their parents cannot afford or access the inhalers they need to breathe."
Nearly five million children in the U.S. have asthma, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an estimated 300 children and young adults in the country die from asthma attacks each year.
CNN reported earlier this year that GSK's decision to pull Flovent off the market in the U.S. put kids in danger of asthma flare-ups and visits to the ER."
Experts and lawmakers have accused GSK of yanking Flovent from the U.S. market to avoid paying significant federal penalties for raising the product's price tag above the rate of inflation.
"Instead of paying Medicaid the rebates it owed in 2024, GSK appears to have used a loophole to preserve its profits from years of exorbitant price increases," Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) wrote in a letter to GSK's chief executive in early May. "GSK replaced both of its brand Flovent inhalers with an identical line of products licensed to a different manufacturer—a company that is conveniently exempt from Medicaid rebates, since it has no existing price history."
"Through your arrangement with Prasco Laboratories," Hassan added, "GSK appears to be circumventing Medicaid rebates to protect decades of profits gained by price gouging patients and public programs."
Sanders said Tuesday that, going forward, the focus of his Senate committee's investigation into inhaler costs and corporate price gouging will be on "the crisis of infants and children with asthma who have been struggling to receive the inhalers they need."
"These companies have a responsibility to make sure that children with asthma in America have access to the inhalers they need," said Sanders. "As the chairman of the HELP Committee, I will continue to do everything I can to make sure that the American people no longer pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs."
