USA lawmakers on Wednesday blasted Mylan NV Chief Executive Heather Bresch for sharply increasing prices for the EpiPen emergency allergy treatment at a congressional hearing in which Republicans and Democrats questioned the reasons behind rising US drug costs.
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“Looking back, I wish we had better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration of the rising financial issues for a growing minority of patients who may have ended up paying the full … price or more”, she said. “We never intended this”.
Mylan has raised the price of EpiPens from 0 for one pen in 2007 to 8 for a set of two pens, leaving many Americans struggling to afford the life-saving medication.
Shares of Mylan have gotten hammered, falling about 27 percent this year, and the negative attention around the EpiPen isn’t likely to help.
“This whole problem seems to be another excellent example of what happens when you have monopoly pricing and don’t have effective competition”, he told The Dallas Morning News last month.
EpiPen has also increased the cost burden to the Medicare program for the elderly, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research group.
Moreover, out-of-pocket spending by seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D who didn’t qualify for income-based subsidies for EpiPen purchases almost doubled during that period, from $30 to $56 per purchase. Prices of the medical device have increased from about $100 in 2007 to $608.
“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.
During her testimony, Bresch pointed out the measures that Mylan has recently taken to address public outrage over its price increases: namely, introducing a generic version of their own drug at a cost of $300, half the current retail cost - a move that she called “unprecedented” - and increasing patient assistance programs.
The CEO also asserted that the EpiPen had competition throughout the course of the yearslong price hikes, though lawmakers pressed her on whether the product’s near-dominance in the market could be classified that way. “We don’t want to go back to a time – not that long ago – when awareness of anaphylaxis was much lower and epinephrine auto-injectors were only available in schools with a prescription for an individual child”. She also touted Mylan’s discounts to schools and to the uninsured and those with high deductibles.
Appearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, CEO Heather Bresch faced the ire of Congressman Elijah Cummings.
Holding up an EpiPen, Chaffetz said: “The actual juice that’s in here that you need costs about a dollar”.
But Mylan’s latest actions are unlikely to satisfy lawmakers.
Mylan Inc. CEO Heather Bresch holds up a 2-pack of EpiPen as she testifies during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill. Schneiderman’s action September 6 came within hours of Democratic Sens.
What bothered him was that Mylan has lobbied Congress to pass laws that forced schools and other entities to buy Epipens.
Bresch is the daughter of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). She was one of Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women In Business” in 2014. Last year, she made almost $19 million.
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“The article is completely inaccurate”, Bresch said. So there were deaths in schools happening because there may have been EpiPens or other epinephrine auto injectors but they weren’t allowed to be used in children, who tragically died. And almost every other state subsequently followed suit after President Obama signed the 2013 School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, which gives funding preference to states that require EpiPen in their schools.
