The price of the EpiPen 2-Pak, which is used to inject life-saving epinephrine into people having severe allergic reactions, has been steadily rising since it was acquired by Mylan in 2007-it was once $100 for a pair and now costs $600.
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Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., on Monday sent a letter to Mylan chief executive Heather Bresch, requesting detailed information and communications regarding the company’s pricing of EpiPen.
Mylan didn’t specify what discounts – if any – it is offering on this $300 generic price.
Eight years ago, EpiPen cost about $100, Reuters noted.
Those steps were to increase the financial assistance the company provided to commercially insured patients to help with their out-of-pocket costs and to broaden the eligibility for uninsured patients to receive free products.
Mylan faces no immediate generic threat, but some companies are looking at developing less expensive products that achieve the same result.
Mylan said it would also allow patients to order EpiPens directly from the company, reducing their cost. The Food and Drug Administration rejected a generic version of the auto-injector from Teva earlier this year. But several questions linger, he said, including whether there be enough supply and whether pharmacy benefit managers will supply the generic or whether Mylan will require patients to pay with cash.
In response to this growing wave of criticism, Mylan will launch a generic version of its EpiPen. So now, the company will essentially sell the same product under two names at two price points, in competition with each other.
Even before Monday, the EpiPen was a textbook case of how to exploit the emotional, political, and economic factors that shape health care spending in the United States.
Mylan has defended its actions by arguing that it had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development to improve the product since acquiring it in 2007. Now that product and a couple rival brand-name ones could hit the US market in mid- to late 2017. A generic version of the drug, developed by the company Teva, was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration past year, and a direct competitor, developed by the drug company Sanofi, faced dosing issues and was recently discontinued too.
And Mylan is going to keep offering a $300 discount on EpiPens for families that qualify based on income.
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Mylan is the latest company to be caught up in the growing outrage over drug price increases.
