Today the CEO of Mylan responded to the uproar over her company’s price increases for EpiPens, the life-saving anti-allergy injectors. For patients previously paying the full list price, the card effectively reduces their out-of-pocket cost exposure by 50 percent, Mylan said.
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“Everybody suffers, except the Mylan investors”, said Sabrina Corlette of Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. It’s a cause deeply important to me because of my son’s life threatening peanut allergy.
This comes after the company came under fire for its recently heightened EpiPen prices.
Some parents whose children rely on EpiPens – footing the bill.
“Discounts for selected customers without lowering the overall price of EpiPens are insufficient because the excessive price will likely be passed on through higher insurance premiums”, said Clinton campaign spokesman Tyrone Gayle, adding that the company should lower the price “immediately”. He’s afraid many patients just won’t get their medication.
“That’s terrible because parents even had difficulty paying for the price they were before the price increase, because if you have a high deductible insurance that leaves a lot of cash out of pocket”, said Reeves. The average cost was more than six times that in May, according to the Elsevier Clinical Solutions’ Gold Standard Drug Database.
Following the uproar about the price of EpiPens, Mylan has vowed to make them more affordable. “What happens when the coupon is no longer offered?”
I laid out that there are four or five hands that the product touches and companies that it goes through before it ever gets to that patient at the counter. And if you’re uninsured, the eligibility level has expanded to some families making up to 400% above the federal poverty level, though you still have to apply for the help with no guarantee from Mylan.
Bresch did not directly answer questions about the more than 600 percent increase in her salary during the same time as the EpiPen cost increases.
Several congressional committees have held hearings since last fall on price hikes by Valeant, Turing and a handful of other drugmakers, but prices for many drugs remain high. “It’s not to make insurers pay unreasonable prices, which are of course passed on to consumers at the end of the day anyway”.
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“And they’re failing to do it”, he said.
