--- title: EpiPen Price War: Do EpiPens Really Expire? description: Are expiration dates on drugs a gauge of their effectiveness, or are they a way for drug makers to boost sales? canonical: https://time.com/4471773/expired-epipens-what-you-need-to-know/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-30T14:40:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:16:27.197Z article:section: Health og:title: Do EpiPens Really Expire? og:description: Are expiration dates on drugs a gauge of their effectiveness, or are they a way for drug makers to boost sales? og:url: https://time.com/4471773/expired-epipens-what-you-need-to-know/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Do EpiPens Really Expire? twitter:description: Are expiration dates on drugs a gauge of their effectiveness, or are they a way for drug makers to boost sales? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Expired EpiPens: What You Need to Know > Sponsored content. 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Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Aug 30, 2016 2:40 PM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Aug 30, 2016 2:40 PM UTC The whole point of an emergency medication is that it’s there, ready to kick in, at a moment’s notice if anything goes wrong. That’s the purpose of epinephrine, the drug in EpiPens, to curtail anaphylactic shock caused by allergies. But not only do these potentially life-saving drugs need to be available, they need to be working at their highest effectiveness. That’s what the expiration date is there to do. It’s a gauge of how close to its optimal effectiveness a drug will function. That date is based on a number of factors, including how well the drug worked when it was tested and then sealed in its unopened container, and whether it was maintained at certain temperatures and moisture levels. Once a bottle of pills is opened, for example, that expiration date isn’t as useful a gauge of that drug’s effectiveness. That’s not the case for EpiPens, the subject of a [controversial price increase](http://time.com/4465869/mylan-epipen-prices/) by its manufacturer, Mylan, because those factors, like light and moisture, are non-factors since the pens are airtight. In fact, with EpiPens, experts think the expiration date is a pretty good gauge of the injectable drug’s potency. Because epinephrine doesn’t maintain its chemical integrity and can’t remain potent for very long, those dates are among the shortest in the drug industry, at about 18 months. And because EpiPens are needed to immediately combat the body’s potentially deadly spiral into shock, it’s imperative that the epinephrine be as close to its optimal effectiveness as possible. Mohamed Jalloh, spokesperson for the American Pharmacists Association and assistant professor of pharmacy at Touro University, California, says there’s another reason to follow expiration dates on the drugs: “The primary concern is that epinephrine will oxidize over time, and because of that, create a byproduct that is associated with hallucinations and other psychiatric symptoms.” That’s another reason why it’s critical that people keep their EpiPens up to date, discard expired ones and replace them with fresh versions. Still, that doesn’t mean that an EpiPen turns toxic or unusable the day after the date stamped on the box. Many doctors say, for example, that using an EpiPen that’s expired by a few weeks or even a month or two is better than not treating someone who might be going into anaphylactic shock after an allergic reaction. “As a pharmacist, if a patient needs an EpiPen and unfortunately the only one available is an expired one versus nothing, then the expired EpiPen is better than nothing in relieving the shock symptoms,” says Jalloh. For people who still find the price of the new [authorized generic](http://time.com/4470410/mylan-epipen-generic-version/) out reach, there is another option. People can ask doctors to write them prescriptions for an epinephrine autoinjection drug, which would allow pharmacists to fill it with another brand, known as Adrenaclick. It takes a little longer to administer (10 seconds to EpiPen’s 3) but it’s far less expensive. According to _Consumer Reports_, [Adrenaclick can be bought for $140-205](http://www.consumerreports.org/drugs/how-to-get-cheaper-epipen-alternative/), depending on where you buy it and whether or not you use coupons. To read more about other EpiPen alternatives, read [Cheaper EpiPen Alternatives You Can Buy Right Now…Plus More Coming Soon.](http://time.com/money/4468716/cheaper-epipen-alternatives-price/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4471773/expired-epipens-what-you-need-to-know/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4471773/expired-epipens-what-you-need-to-know/"},"headline":"Expired EpiPens: What You Need to Know","datePublished":"2016-08-30T14:40:41.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:16:27.197Z","description":"When to toss them, when to use them anyway, and what your alternatives are","url":"https://time.com/4471773/expired-epipens-what-you-need-to-know/","keywords":["Pharmaceuticals","medicine","Drugs","allergies","EpiPen"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/pharmaceuticals/","name":"Pharmaceuticals"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4471773/expired-epipens-what-you-need-to-know/","name":"Expired EpiPens: What You Need to Know"}}]}] ```