The pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has agreed to cap out-of-pocket costs for climate-friendly asthma inhalers at $35, a move applauded by lawmakers for having potential benefits on the environment and patients.
The news follows an investigation by POLITICO’s E&E News into how developing emissions-free inhalers could help AstraZeneca and another inhaler-maker, GlaxoSmithKline, undermine competition for at least a decade by bringing old medications under new patent protection.
AsrtaZeneca and GSK are currently developing the so-called green inhalers, which don’t rely on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, as propellants to push the medicine into patients’ lungs, like conventional inhalers.
Those efforts are partially motivated by a supply chain squeeze on HFCs — potent greenhouse gases subject to international treaties that require their use be phased down. But the $1 billion investment in green inhalers could benefit the drug companies by allowing them to charge patients and insurers premium prices for lifesaving drugs, some of which are decades-old.
In financial disclosure documents, AstraZeneca called the climate-friendly inhalers a “business opportunity” that could increase yearly revenue by close to $100 million.
AstraZeneca, facing scrutiny over rising inhaler costs from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Health Committee, pledged this spring to limit the cost of inhalers at $35, along with two other drug companies. But as recently as October, AstraZeneca and GSK refused to extend that promise to green inhalers, for which both companies plan to seek regulatory approval in 2025.
AstraZeneca shifted its position Friday. “We plan to extend our current cap on patient out-of-pocket costs at $35 per month for our inhaled respiratory medicines containing a novel propellant with a near-zero global warming potential, subject to regulatory approvals,” the company said in a statement.
Sanders, who helped negotiate the initial price cap on inhalers, said he was “delighted” by the news.
“No person should get sick or die because they cannot afford to pay for the inhalers that their doctors prescribe,” he said in a statement.
He called on GSK to follow AstraZeneca’s lead.
“Pharmaceutical companies should not be able to use reformulating as an excuse to sidestep their promises to patients,” Sanders said.
GSK did not respond to a request for comment.
