And by keeping drug prices at their current levels, pharmaceutical companies also preserve their profit margins, while maintaining the flexibility to, yes, raise prices more moderately later on. “I will continue to push for a federal investigation and Congressional action”. Blumenthal, a first-term senator in the minority in the Republican-controlled Senate, is the ranking member on the consumer protection subcommittee.
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CBS News reports that the price of EpiPens has increased by more than 480 percent since 2009, two years after Mylan purchased the device from Merck.
The price of the EpiPen has skyrocketed from $94 to $608 in just a few years, and now a local family has a blunt message for the company’s CEO: Step down and go away. “This kind of profiteering impacts CT and our entire country”.
She blames the high prices on a failing health care system. “Everybody suffers, except the Mylan investors”.
In a story August 24 about U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen.
“We are also concerned that the substantial price increase from Mylan could limit access to a much-needed medication”, the Senators wrote to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc was caught in a whirlwind of criticism after it dramatically increased the price of a heart drug.
Earlier this month, Mylan was one of the companies Manchin praised for donating money to help build homes in flood-ravaged West Virginia.
“As a mother, I can assure you, the last thing that we would ever want is no one to have their EpiPen due to price”, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch said on CNBC in an interview. “There’s no question, the system is broken”. She received total compensation of $18.9 million for the 2015 fiscal year, according to the company’s proxy statement.
“I think we have an obligation to the American people to do our job regardless of who is related to who at a company”, Klobuchar told reporters. She said she’s excited by a MA start-up, Windgap Medical, which is trying to build an alternative.
Allergy sufferers use the devices for the immediate treatment of life-threatening anaphylactic shocks arising from allergies.
The American Medical Association, which represents almost a quarter of a million doctors, also knocked Mylan for raising the price even though the product is “unchanged” since 2009.
“Unfortunately it’s really going to affect our parents with the price hike, some of the parents may not be able to afford the cost of the EpiPens for their students that go to school”, said Paulette Rozneck, the Student Health Services Coordinator for LISD. She said insurers, pharmacies, prescription benefit managers and distributors divvy up the rest. The price rise reflects an increase of more than 500 percent.
Another fact not lost on angry customers is that as the price for EpiPens grew, so did Bresch’s own compensation, which spiked more than 671 percent to $18.9 million past year. Mylan reached $1 billion in sales for the second time a year ago.
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After all, only a small group of people will receive the full benefit of Mylan’s maximum $300 discount, as only 4% of EpiPen patients were actually paying the whole $608 wholesale cost out-of-pocket anyway, according to IMS Health data. It said that means a family of four making up to $97,200 would pay nothing out of pocket for the treatment.
