AB 1011

This bill requires that the Department of Health Services purchase and provide

to ambulance service providers without charge a set of two epinephrine

auto-injectors or a set of two draw-up epinephrine kits for each ambulance

operating in the state. Under the bill, an ambulance service provider means an

ambulance service provider that is a public agency, volunteer fire department, or

nonprofit corporation. The bill also requires that, on an ongoing basis, DHS must,

upon request, provide replacement sets to ambulance service providers.

Also, for drug products prescribed to counteract anaphylaxis, this bill allows,

if certain conditions are met, a pharmacist to substitute a drug product with another

drug product in the same therapeutic class that would, in the opinion of the

pharmacist, have a substantially equivalent therapeutic effect even though the

substitute drug product is

not

a drug product equivalent. The bill also provides that

a pharmacist who dispenses a drug product for a patient in a hospital may, for a drug

product prescribed to counteract anaphylaxis, under the same conditions applicable

for drug product equivalents under current law, substitute a drug product with

another drug product in the same therapeutic class that would in the opinion of the

pharmacist, have a substantially equivalent therapeutic effect even though the

substitute drug product is not a drug product equivalent. Current law defines a

“drug product equivalent” as a drug product that is designated the therapeutic

equivalent of another drug product by the federal Food and Drug Administration as

set forth in the latest edition of or supplement to the federal Food and Drug

Administration's

Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence

Evaluations

, commonly known as the Orange Book. As with substitution of drug

product equivalents under current law, the therapeutic class substitutions allowed

under the bill do not apply to biological products.