CVS Boosts Access To EpiPen Rival That’s Only 17 Percent The Cost

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not consider differing brands of epinephrine auto-injectors to be therapeutically equivalent to each other, despite the fact that they administer the same active ingredients in the same doses. This is because some, like the EpiPen and Adrenaclick, have injectors that work in slightly different ways from each other. Because of this classification, patients can’t easily substitute a cheaper pen for the brand they are prescribed unless they live in a state that has changed its own regulations to allow it. Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, criticized the FDA’s drug classifications on this matter, calling the protections “anti-competitive.”