Cummings has requested a House oversight committee hearing with Mylan officials to discuss the EpiPen price increase.
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This week, Mylan joined other drugmakers such as Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and Turing Pharmaceuticals, who’ve been blasted for mammoth price increases. Manchin’s daughter just happens to be the CEO of Mylan, and it was she who enjoyed a massive raise when EpiPen’s price shot up. “We recognize the significant burden on patients from continued, rising insurance premiums and being forced increasingly to pay the full list price for medicines at the pharmacy counter”. For those patients, using the $300 savings card would cut their costs by half.
Mylan said it would also allow patients to order EpiPens directly from the company, reducing their cost.
The announcement came Wednesday after Hillary Clinton publically criticized the company and the Federal Trade Commission threatened to launch an investigation into the drug maker’s possible violation of antitrust laws through price-hiking. She said insurers, pharmacies, prescription benefit managers and distributors divvy up the rest. Mylan has said that many people get EpiPens with no out-of-pocket cost.
“My frustration is there is a list price of $608”. “Competition in the market is an essential component of ensuring lower costs”.
“I think one of the reasons Mylan had the guts to move this price up so rapidly is because they do have a monopoly” said Sen.
Mylan is the latest drugmaker to provoke substantial anger over steep price hikes.
Responding to a growing furor from consumers and politicians, the pharmaceutical company Mylan said Thursday that it would lower the cost to some patients of the EpiPen, which is used to treat life-threatening allergy attacks. But EpiPen, introduced in 1987, is so well known that most doctors prescribe it without considering an alternative. Mylan declined to comment when asked to explain the price hike.
The drug-hike is being likened to the saga involving the “most hated man in America” or “pharma bro”, Martin Shkreli.
“Price is only one part of the problem that we are addressing with today’s actions”, Heather Bresch, Mylan CEO, said in a prepared statement.
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“It has to be done”, she said.
