Lawmakers blasted the chief executive of the maker of EpiPens at a House hearing Wednesday, saying the company’s price hikes of more than 500% were stopping families from keeping their children safe.
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To appease critics, the company has also chose to soon begin selling the device as a generic drug at a price of $300 – half the price of the EpiPen. Similar hearings were held in the previous year with executives from Turing Pharmaceuticals and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, companies that also sharply raised prices on some drugs.
Her company’s move to increase the cost of EpiPens by more than 400 percent since 2007 has raised the ire of the entire country. Republicans and Democrats have said families struggling to pay for the shots have every right to be angry at Mylan.
“The story got ahead of the facts”, Bresch said at the hearing held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Questioned Chairman Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican.
Lawmakers repeatedly referred to Mylan MYL, +1.58% “jacking” up the EpiPen’s price over the course of a combative two-hour hearing, asking Bresch to justify the price and rebuking her repeated assertions that the company collects only a small percentage of an over-$600 list price for an EpiPen two-pack.
“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 said.
That reason, “I believe, was to get filthy rich at the expense of our constituents”, he said.
Mylan CEO Heather Bresch is testifying before the panel Wednesday.
Mylan NV (MYL.O) faced new scrutiny over price hikes for its anti-allergy EpiPen on Tuesday, with USA 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.
She also argues that Mylan doesn’t profit as much as might be expected given the list price. Chaffetz, the chairman of the committee, also used his time to grill Bresch, focusing on the lack of competition for the product and the specific economics at play.
While Bresch’s testimony and answers stressed Mylan’s commitment to providing access to the drug, lawmakers were skeptical. In the hearing, Bresch said the report was a “low blow”.
“Suddenly, feeling the heat, Mylan has offered a generic version and cut the price in half, so that does beg the question what was happening with that other $300?”
There is no generic auto injector of epinephrine now on the market, nor is there a major competitor for the EpiPen.
Remedies offered by Mylan in the weeks after a recent public backlash, which include a generic $300 EpiPen, an increased savings coupon value and expanded patient assistance programs, also came under attack.
Bresch is the daughter of a former West Virginia governor and current US senator, Joe Manchin.
Manchin “dedicated her life to education” and was only head of the National Association of State Boards of Education for one year, yet Mylan has kept its Epipens for schools program running, Bresch pointed out. Explain to me. When you buy the generic version? On Tuesday, the West Virginia state attorney general said his office was investigating Mylan over potential antitrust violations and accusations that it may have overcharged the state Medicaid program for the product.
Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan:L “It will be the same product with the epinephrine auto-injector on it”.
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In the Senate, leaders of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ investigations subcommittee said earlier this month that they have begun an inquiry into the company’s pricing and competition practices.
