Twenty Democratic senators are demanding answers about steep price hikes for the life-saving EpiPen injector device. “And Mylan asserts that the generic is “identical to the branded product” – further calling into question the excessively high price of branded EpiPens”.
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Responding to an outcry over the increased price of its allergy auto-injector EpiPen, Mylan (MYL) plans to launch a cheaper generic alternative, reported Reuters.
But Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, and 19 Senate Democrats doubled down on their criticism Tuesday, saying the discounts amounted to a “complex shell game” that drug makers play. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., questioned those strategies.
Several consumer advocacy groups, unhappy with Mylan’s handling of the drug’s pricing, said that today they would deliver petitions signed by more than 600,000 people to the company’s corporate headquarters in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. It will have a list price of $300 for a two-pack, compared with $608 for the brand-name version.
“Some Americans who are unable to afford this cost increase have resorted to carrying expired EpiPens – or carry no EpiPens at all”, the senators wrote.
Twenty Democratic senators signed the eight-page note demanding answers by September 12 on the company’s decision to hike prices by more than 500 percent since 2007.
The estimated cost for the only generic epinephrine two-pack auto injector now on the market, according to GoodRx, ranges between $140 and $379, even with a coupon.
Local families are among those across the nation concerned with the price surge of the live-saving drug, EpiPen.
There’s now little competition for EpiPen. And when drug companies offer patient assistance cards, it’s usually not clear how many patients benefit.
But those moves won’t defray the cost of the “exorbitantly expensive” product for other health care players, including the government, insurance companies and employers, the senators said, which in turn pass those costs to consumers through premium payments.
“We have more competition than we did yesterday, but on the other hand, we don’t have wide-open competition among the generics”, Carrier said.
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Federal lawmakers have said Mylan has a virtual monopoly on the drug, which is administered during times of severe and potentially fatal allergic reactions. The difference is in how the injector pens are designed and how they work. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form.
