She says some think the company makes $600 off each EpiPen, but that is not true.
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When asked if she understood what the furore was about, she argued that the complexity of drug pricing is partially to blame. In testimony submitted today before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the 47-year-old Bresch said it “troubles me greatly that the EpiPen product has become a source of controversy”.
Bresch faced bipartisan backlash and harsh criticism for pricing of the Epipen. Last year, she made almost $19 million.
“The greed is astounding, it’s sickening and disgusting”, the Tennessee Republican said before the committee went on recess to participate in a vote on the house floor.
In a recent note to clients, Stanicky, who rates the stock as “sector perform”, wrote that Mylan isn’t getting grief over the EpiPen’s $600 price tag, but rather “it is the magnitude and consistency of the annual price increases”.
“The Minnesota Department of Human Services estimates this misclassification will result in the state overpaying an estimated $4.3 million this year alone”, Blumenthal and the other lawmakers wrote HHS earlier this month.
Cummings emphasized his disgust that pharmaceutical companies would continue to ratchet up drug prices for life-saving medication and said he hoped Bresch would apologize.
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin is hoping to get more transparency out of prescription drug companies like Mylan before they raise prices on potentially life-saving drugs.
“We never intended this”, she says. “We receive $274 of that $608”.
For example, in 2009, changes to the device improved it, Bresch said.
“You get what you deserve”, said Rep. Mick Mulvaney of SC. Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland says Americans have a right to know how much Mylan executives are making off what he calls “exorbitant prices”.
Bresch, 47, is no stranger to politics.
The issue has an unusual complication for Congress due to the fact that Bresch’s father is Sen.
Questions arose about Tuesday’s USA Today article in which Bresch’s mother, former state Board of Education member Gayle Manchin, pushed the use of EpiPens at schools nationwide when she was leading a national school board group. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has written several letters to Mylan demanding answers. EpiPens earned Mylan $184 million in 2008.
At a brutal congressional hearing in Washington Wednesday, Mylan NV didn’t have any friends among Republicans who said they wished they could defend the drugmaker.
Mylan turned the EpiPen into its first billion-dollar product through the price hikes and by spurring demand. Her total compensation has surged an eye-popping 671 percent from 2007 to 2015, when it hit near $19 million. People with allergies to food or insect stings, or their parents, are among those who typically carry the auto-injectors with them. Many schools also stockpile the devices under 2013 legislation, signed by President Obama, that encourages the practice.
Mr Cummings said that wasn’t good enough, and accused the company of using “the same PR playbook that other companies use” by adding patient assistance programmes. Participating companies pay 13 percent in rebates on generic drugs versus 23 percent on branded products.
Ms Bresch noted that Mylan has said it will begin selling its generic version for $US300 for a pair. Both Republicans and Democrats peppered her with questions regarding hikes in the price of the EpiPen, a portable emergency treatment for severe allergies.
The drug that the EpiPen delivers – epinephrine – is a generic, but the delivery device is protected by patent.
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The company, which is run from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, but is officially registered in the Netherlands after a so- called tax inversion, is facing multiple inquiries from lawmakers and law enforcement. The hearing begins at 2 p.m. ET.
