The cost of EpiPens from the pharmaceutical company Mylan have gone up about 480 percent, from about $100 in 2009 to more than $600 this year, according to the American Pharmacists Association.
Advertisement
Many people who suffer from severe allergies rely on the EpiPen for emergencies-and are now fuming that their lifesaving medicine just shot up in price. Forbes estimates the cost of the actual medicine is about $1 per dosage.
“Patients are calling and saying they can’t afford it”, Dr. Douglas McMahon, an allergy specialist in Maplewood, Minnesota, told NBC. “They’re between a rock and a hard place”. And these medications, which are kept on hand in case of an allergic reaction, expire about once a year, which means you have to stay up to date with new prescriptions even if you haven’t used a past one.
About a year ago, Martin Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals bought a drug and then hiked up its price by 5,000%, raising awareness about how the cost of a drug can skyrocket virtually overnight, especially when it doesn’t face much generic competition.
In response to questions about its high list price, Mylan noted in a statement emailed to Business Insider that about 80% of people with commercial insurance who also used a “My EpiPen Savings Card” received the device for $0.
The price hike of the EpiPen also caused Bernie Sanders to speak out.
Mylan Pharmaceuticals said in a statement to The Huffington Post that they have donated more than 650,000 EpiPen and EpiPen Jr. injectors to USA schools, and that 80 percent of insured patients get their EpiPen for free using the savings card. The EpiPen has a shelf-life of 12 to 18 months, as opposed to a manual syringe with a vial of epinephrine which has a shelf-life of three months, making the injector more desirable by parents.
Advertisement
There is a generic option now available, but it’s not the same technology and it’s used differently than EpiPen. Premiums, prescription coverage, out-of-pocket limits and deductibles can vary widely. Amy Klobuchar, a ranking member of the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee, wants the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the “enormous increase in the price of EpiPens”, following a number of recent media reports regarding the devices’ high cost.
