Article: CFC-free inhalers may add $1.5b to asthma care costs: patented formulations will replace generics.(News)

SAN FRANCISCO -- The phaseout of inhalers that use chlorofluorocarbons to deliver medication for asthma of lung disease will cost patients more because newer inhalers use patented instead of generic formulations, according to experts.

The Food and Drug Administration has prohibited the manufacture, marketing, or sale of albuterol inhalers containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) after December 2008, and the dwindling supply of CFCs--one of the best known being the refrigerant Freon--means these inhalers "will be gone probably well before" then, Mona Gold Tsoukleris, Pharm.D, said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The FDA also ...

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