People with severe allergies stab themselves with the EpiPen to deliver a hormone called epinephrine that ends an allergy attack.
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That sharp increase has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers. Sen. “Therefore, I demand that Mylan take immediate action to lower the price of EpiPen’s for all Americans that rely on this product for their health and safety”.
The price of the 62-year-old drug, which is available on the NHS in the United Kingdom, costs roughly 64p to produce.
Mylan has given away more than 700,000 free EpiPen’s to schools since 2012 under a program that allows them to receive four free auto-injectors, the company said in a statement. Back in 2007, a two-dose pack of EpiPens cost a little under $100 dollars. The law provides incentives to schools to make sure adequate levels of the drug are available at the school.
EpiPens are used when those suffering severe allergies are stung by bees or accidentally ingest peanuts to ward off potentially deadly reactions.
A group of lawmakers said on Wednesday they had written the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asking about its approval process for alternatives to the EpiPen. Joe Manchin, the Democrat of West Virginia, has a very different personal connection. Blumenthal promoted that legislation, which failed in the Senate, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in December 2012.
Klobuchar is the ranking member of the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“There does not appear to be any justification for the continual price increases of EpiPen”. “It has monopolistic control over the market”. The needle inside injects the epinephrine into muscle tissue. “I will observe, however, that pharmaceutical companies that often try to portray themselves as the inventors of life-saving medication often do real damage to their reputation by being greedy and jacking up prices”.
Meanwhile, Mylan jacked up the price of metoclopramide, which is used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease, 444%, he wrote. “What other programs do you have to help consumers cover the remaining $500 that the underinsured, uninsured, or those with high deductible plans may be forced to pay annually?” She is a greedy, malicious scoundrel and It’s my hope that the senators who question her will not give her kid glove comity just because she is kin to a colleague.
Klobuchar was joined at a news conference at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis on Monday by pediatricians who denounced the price increases as unconscionable.
Meanwhile, the daughter of Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Bernie Sanders I-Vt.
Clinton on Wednesday called on Mylan to voluntarily cut EpiPen’s price. Since the drug manufacturer, Mylan, purchased EpiPen in 2007, the price has gone up more than 400 percent.
“It’s wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them”, Clinton said in a statement. Turing was then led by Martin Shkreli, who became the poster child for the issue of soaring prices for prescription medications.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote Bresch requesting information about the reason behind the price increase. In other nations, governments evaluate the cost-effectiveness of drugs and set maximum prices.
