Boost your budget from $10 to $1500 for this. . .

[disneysteve]

I've been prescribed the MaxAir the past time or two, but I'm not loving it. I like the canister inhalers because they work with my "thingy" that helps me inhale all the medicine, the MaxAir doesn't.

Tell your doctor you want Proventil or Ventolin from now on.

[LuckyRobin]

Tessalon and Albuterol are both still on the market so I'm not sure what the problem is there.

Really? The last time I tried to get them my doctor said they weren't available anymore. I wonder if they were pulled for a short time or something. It's been a couple of years ago so I'll ask again. I don't like the other inhaler I have at all, even if I only use it once or twice a year.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

The company that will be selling the pregnancy maintenance drug is standing in boiling hot water.

Backlash builds over KV's 'outlandish' price for prenatal drug

Lucky Robin, albuterol is available as Ventolin, HFA. It has a new delivery method. My husband finds the container does not have as many doses as it is supposed to, nor is it as well aerosolized as well as the old version was. So he does not get as complete relief of his asthma. You can find other people on the internet reporting the same problems.

The Ventolin was changed so as not to contribute fluorocarbons to the atmosphere. It seems a shame to put that on the back (or lungs, rather) of people who are sensitive to the far greater air pollution of things like, oh say, driving a car. But at least the inhaler was not changed for the sake of GREED as is the case in the Makena drug.

[disneysteve]

The Ventolin was changed so as not to contribute fluorocarbons to the atmosphere. It seems a shame to put that on the back (or lungs, rather) of people who are sensitive to the far greater air pollution of things like, oh say, driving a car. But at least the inhaler was not changed for the sake of GREED

Actually, I believe the production and sale of CFCs was banned by the government so it didn't only affect asthma inhalers. It affected everything from deodorant to spray paint. In fact, I think the asthma inhalers were the last products removed from the market. They were allowed to keep selling them until a suitable replacement propellant went through all the necessary FDA testing.

Again, it is the identical drug. Only the propellant changed and that isn't the active ingredient so it had no effect on how the medicine worked.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I know I'm bringing up quite an old thread, but I wanted to post some updates on the company that jacked up the price on the pre-term labor preventing drug, Makena.

After much backlash from consumers, medical assciations, charitable organizations, and states, KV Pharmaceutical lowered the price from $1500 to $690. However, some states continued to have it compounded by pharmacists, at a price of $15-$17. The FDA publicly made known that they would make only a reduced effort to defend KV PHarmaceutical's right to be the exclusive seller and to collect their demanded price on those $15 & $17 doses that some state Medicaid programs were buying elsewhere.

Some 300 private insurers had actually added Makena to the list of their own approved-for-purchase drugs, at the lowered price.

But last month, KV Pharmaceutical filed for bankruptcy and their common stock is going for just over 10 cents per share.

They also are suing the FDA & Medicaid officers.
This info is from
Backlash builds over KV's 'outlandish' price for prenatal drug : Stltoday
and from
KV Pharmaceutical suing for survival : Stltoday