The shots now cost about $600 for a two-pack, and the vast majority of states now require or encourage schools to stock epinephrine devices. “If the price goes from $608 to $300, your collection on that is actually higher, and you’re telling me that your net profit is actually going to go down?”
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Chaffetz says parents don’t have a choice.
“I find this to be so extreme. The pricing of a pharmaceutical product is opaque and frustrating, especially for patients”.
Mylan NV (MYL.O) faced new scrutiny over price hikes for its anti-allergy EpiPen on Tuesday, with US lawmakers calling for a probe of oversight of the company’s rebates to government healthcare plans, while West Virginia said it was investigating whether Mylan defrauded its Medicaid department.
“In the complicated world of pharmaceutical pricing, there is something known as the ‘Wholesale Acquisition Cost, ‘ or WAC”, she said.
“This doesn’t make any sense”, said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican and the chairman of the committee, after Bresch attempted to explain the price hikes.
The Mylan executive has some familiarity with Capitol Hill she is the daughter of Sen.
As CEO, Bresch made $18.9 million previous year.
Bresch did express some regret in her submitted testimony. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, has also faced a harsh spotlight.
Mylan acquired the drug in 2007 and raised the price of a two-pack from less than $100 to more than $600 today, which has led to fierce criticism from lawmakers and the public. The company estimates that 85 percent of EpiPen users pay less than $100 for a two-unit package, and the majority pay less than $500.
Reuters reports that during several portions of Bresch’s hearing testimony, as she tried to explain the finer points of USA drug pricing and the difficulty in making money when revenue is divided between health insurers, etc., lawmakers interrupted the executive.
At the hearing, the panel’s top Democrat, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, demanded that Bresch apologize even as he predicted that nothing would change after the hearing, and called for legislation.
“I think you all have behaved very badly and invited government regulation”, Farenthold lectured the CEO.
The House committee is not the only group of officials demanding answers from Bresch.
Lawmakers met Bresch’s discussion of Mylan’s work in schools to make the EpiPen more available with scorn.
“Transparency is needed”, Bresch said. It has also introduced a generic version that is half the price of the brand.
Mylan has increased the price of a pair of EpiPens sixfold since it bought the treatment.
Yet that price has risen by more than 500 percent since Mylan acquired the device in 2007, irking House investigators who said sharply rising drug costs are breaking the budgets of families, schools and taxpayer-funded programs alike, even as Mrs. Bresch earned $18 million a year ago.
Rep. John Duncan of Tennessee, who describes himself as a pro-business Republican, said he was “sickened” by the greed at Mylan. “You asked for it”.
“You get what you deserve”, said Rep. Mick Mulvaney of SC.
Bresch replied that Mylan had increased children’s access to EpiPens by giving over 700,000 EpiPens to schools across the country.
“I want to fix this because it’s not just your product that is the problem”, he said.
Earlier, New York state’s attorney general launched a probe into Mylan’s contracts with school systems to purchase EpiPens, which may have terms created to keep out competition.
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Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, testified that he is aware of the recent spike in prices for EpiPens – his son uses one – and that the agency is working to support generic competitors that could put downward pressure on costs.
