On Aug. 18, U.S. Sen.
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) As a pharmaceutical company run by U.S. Sen.
Bresch, daughter of Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said she contacted members of Congress over the past two days and asked to meet with them to discuss what she called an “unsustainable” drug pricing system. Nine years ago, one EpiPen cost about . It marked the third time over the past year that Clinton’s comments roiled drug stocks.
Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday that a senator’s daughter should not get special treatment when it comes to an investigations of her pharmaceutical company.
On Monday, Grassley sent Bresch a letter requesting information about how Mylan determined the price of EpiPens.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Mylan has violated antitrust laws in its marketing of the EpiPen.
That is changing as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the American Medical Association and a number of US senators are calling on Bresch to roll back the steep price hikes on EpiPens. Instead, the company focused on insurance policies with high deductibles that shift costs to patients.
Be Civil – It’s OK to have a difference in opinion but there’s no need to be a jerk. It also says that since 2012, Mylan’s EpiPen4Schools program has given schools more than 700,000 free EpiPens.
Klobuchar supports allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices for millions of seniors. “The high cost of these devices may either keep them out of reach of people in need or force some families to choose between EpiPens and other essentials”.
Martin Shkreli, the former head of Turing Pharmaceutical who has been criticized for hiking the price of a cancer drug 5,000%, also took the company’s side this week, telling CBS News that the company was “making a little bit of money” and that packs were only 0.
On Wednesday, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the American Medical Association (AMA) separately called on Mylan to lower the cost of the auto-injecting pens, which reverse deadly allergic reactions.
“I have heard from numerous residents in Minnesota that recent price increases for an EpiPen could result in them losing access to this life-saving technology”, Paulsen wrote.
There is also an alternative for patients.
His daughter, Heather Bresch, is CEO of Mylan, the company behind the epinephrine injection, reports The Washington Post.
While the drug industry can be an “incredible source of American innovation”, she said “it’s wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them”.
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Mylan has not yet directly explained its pricing, but in a statement pointed to rising health insurance deductibles that have led to higher costs for consumers. Mylan’s President, Rajiv Malik, received a base pay increase of $1 million, while the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, Anthony Mauro, received an increase in pay totally $625,000 annually.
