The Clinton Foundation on Monday announced that it had negotiated a lower price for an emergency treatment that can prevent overdoses with a company that makes it. The soaring cost of the treatment has constrained its widespread use by municipalities across the country.

Naloxone is a medication that reverses the effects of prescription painkiller or heroin overdoses. Doctors and paramedics give it to people who have stopped breathing or lost consciousness. In the past it was used mostly in medical settings like hospitals, but in recent years its use has spread to homes or on the streets, where overdoses commonly occur, a trend experts say can improve the chances of saving a person’s life.

But as the medication’s use has risen, its price has surged in many towns and cities over the past year. Local law enforcement and health authorities say they are struggling to keep the lifesaving drug available to those who need it.

The Clinton Health Matters Initiative, which is part of the Clinton Foundation, founded by former President Bill Clinton, said it had negotiated a stable, low price for a device called Evzio, a hand-held auto-injector similar to an EpiPen that delivers a single dose of naloxone.