![]() In August, Endo’s president and CEO, Blaise Coleman, told investors Supprelin was doing particularly well for the company. Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing. Vantas and Supprelin were made in the same facility, but the problem affected only Vantas, she wrote, stressing that the drugs are “not identical products.” Batches of Vantas weren’t coming out right and couldn’t be released to the public, the company’s vice president of corporate affairs, Heather Zoumas Lubeski, told NPR in an email. There was a Vantas shortage.Įndo cited a manufacturing problem. “In my mind, I was like, ‘Well, she got it the first time, and we’ve already kind of fought the battle with the insurance company and, you know, got it approved.”īut during a virtual appointment with his daughter’s doctor, he learned they couldn’t get Vantas. “I thought we would just get a Vantas replacement,” Taksali said. Then this summer, it was time to replace the implant. Vantas can be prescribed off-label for the condition, and after much back-and-forth dialogue, Taksali finally got the insurer to cover it. Then, the company discontinued the lower-priced option. Sudeep Taksali questioned why Endo Pharmaceuticals made two nearly identical drug delivery implants with vastly different prices. But his insurer would not initially cover it, instead preferring Supprelin LA, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat central precocious puberty, and costs about $43,000. He wanted to use the cheaper one, Vantas, which costs about $4,800 per implant. One cost more than eight times more than the other. Taksali, an orthopedic surgeon, learned there were two nearly identical drug products made by Endo Pharmaceuticals, both containing 50 milligrams of the hormone blocker histrelin. The girl’s doctors and the Taksalis decided to put her puberty on pause with a hormone-blocking drug implant that would be placed under the skin in her arm and release a little bit of the medication each day. KHN and NPR wrote about Taksali and his family as part of the Bill of the Month series. She’d been diagnosed with central precocious puberty, a rare condition marked by early onset of sexual development - often years earlier than one’s peers. ![]() In 2020, he’d fought to get insurance to cover a lower-priced version of a drug his then-8-year-old needed. Do you have an exorbitant or baffling medical bill? Join the KFF Health News and NPR ‘Bill of the Month’ Club and tell us about your experience.
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