BENGALURU – Netherlands-based Mylan says it will launch the first generic version of its allergy auto-injector EpiPen at half the price of the branded product, the drug maker’s second step in a few days to counter a wave of criticism over the product’s high price. Three hundred bucks is still three times the price of an EpiPen in 2007, after all. Even the generic, expected to be available in several weeks, should provide a nice profit to Mylan because its manufacturing costs are believed to be far less than $300. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said in a statement Monday.
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Robert Weissman, president of the consumer group Public Citizen, said that the new move was not enough and that Mylan should just cut the price across the board. While brand-name drug companies sometimes start selling so-called authorized generic versions of their own products, it is usually to undercut an outside generic competitor.
Mylan, the only USA maker, has raised the price for its EpiPen Auto-Injectors by 480 percent since 2009.
Parents doing back-to-school preparations encountered sticker shock at pharmacy counters this month and began protesting to politicians and on social media, leading to an uproar in an election year when drug prices already are a hot issue and other drugmakers have been blasted for astronomical price hikes.
Thank goodness for competition, the epicenter of the recent EpiPen controversy.
But for patients who are candidates for generic drugs, despite the difference in price, patients may only feel comfortable taking brand name medications. But the senators said that while consumers may be insulated from the price with such discounts, the insurer still has to pay a hefty cost, which in turn raises premiums.
On Thursday, the company said it would offer savings cards and double patient eligibility for assistance, such that a family of four with an annual income of almost $100,000 would pay nothing out of pocket for an injector.
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U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the chairwoman of the Senate Aging Committee, said that patient assistance programs don’t help people participating in government healthcare programs like the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid and Medicare. It allows people who complete educational training to carry and administer epinephrine through auto-injectors like EpiPens. After Mylan brought the rights to sell the pens in 2007, when they cost about $57 a shot, Bresch’s marketing programs made them a must-have drug for patients with allergic reactions.
