Last week Mylan came under fire from politicians, health advocates and parents in the United States for raising the price of its branded EpiPen to $US300 ($396). The scandal over the EpiPen ought to embarrass Bresch and her company, but all those unsolicited testimonials to the device’s life-saving capacity might just embolden them. Last week, consumer rage over a 500% price increase to the company’s flagship product, the EpiPen, hit a fever pitch. He says the company made contributions to Wisconsin legislators.
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Earlier this year, applications for alternative auto-injectors from Teva and Adamis pharmaceutical companies were not approved by the FDA.
“You’ve got three, four auto-injectors everywhere and that certainly is really costly”, he said.
Murkowski added that the price hike is particularly problematic for remote parts of Alaska, where help can be many hundreds of miles away.
Consumer groups are busily signing petitions to delivery to Mylan’s U.S. headquarters to protest the prices of this life-saving drug, upset as they are by both the enormous branded price and the generic price.
But Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, and 19 Senate Democrats doubled down on their criticism Tuesday, saying the discounts amounted to a “complex shell game” that drug makers play.
But for patients who are candidates for generic drugs, despite the difference in price, patients may only feel comfortable taking brand name medications.
This way, Mylan can keep its original list price up on the EpiPen while keeping users who might be deterred by its price from going to a competing emergency-epinephrine device. Richard Blumenthal called a “PR stunt”.
“You would have thought they would had learned after Turing”, said Emanuel, referring to Turing Pharmaceuticals and the decision of its onetime CEO Martin Shkreli to raise the price of Daraprim, an antiparastic used by HIV patients, by more than 5,000 percent.
In a statement, the company said, “Mylan will continue to offer both – generic and brand – options for patients so that they can work with their healthcare provider to determine the best option for them”. Rival Adrenaclick carries a list price of $461, and there’s a generic version, but doctors typically prescribe EpiPen, originally launched in 1987, because it’s so well known.
“At $600 per prescription that can be prohibitive for many families if they are underinsured or their particular plan doesn’t cover the EpiPen”, Tucker said. That offer will remain available towards the branded product and not the generic, according to Mylan.
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To make amendments, Mylan has now introduced a $300 savings card for buying the auto-injectible drug.
