MylanMYL 0.53 % NV CEO Heather Bresch plans to defend the rising price of EpiPens when testifying before Congress Wednesday, sticking to the company’s effort to shift blame to health insurers and drug-benefit managers.
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After filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the FTC for complaints regarding EpiPen pricing, necn Investigates found complaints about the price gouging began in 2012.
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin is hoping to get more transparency out of prescription drug companies like Mylan before they raise prices on potentially life-saving drugs.
The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says high executive pay at pharmaceutical company Mylan “doesn’t add up for a lot of people” as the company has raised the price for the life-saving EpiPen.
Mylan’s defense of modest profit gains has been questioned by others.
“After mylan takes our punches, they’ll fly back to their mansions in their private jets and laugh all the way to the bank”, said Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings.
“We never intended this”, Bresch said, but maintained that her company doesn’t make much profit from each emergency allergy shot and signaled the company has no plans to lower prices.
Lawmakers met Bresch’s discussion of Mylan’s work in schools to make the EpiPen more available with scorn.
“Our concern was absolutely that anyone who needs an EpiPen has one”, she said.
In an CNBC interview last month, Bresch also blamed the price hikes on a “broken” health care system that “incentivizes higher prices” in the industry.
Now almost every state recommends or requires that schools have an epinephrine injector on hand; under the so-called “EpiPen Law” the White House gives funding preference to schools that stock the devices - and while schools are not required to choose one autoinjector over another, EpiPen’s near monopoly in the market ensures that most schools are stocked with the brand-name devices. It commands over 90 percent of the market, with no competition expected until next year at the earliest.
That didn’t satisfy Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn., who described himself as a pro-business Republican.
Mylan has faced increased scrutiny for the price of its signature product, a portable auto-injecting device for emergency treatment of severe allergic reactions.
Mylan piqued Congress’ ire on the cusp of the school year as parents made sure their children had the devices on hand.
Expensive drugs have greatly added to the overall annual cost of USA health care and are posing serious economic consequences for consumers, health insurers and federal government agencies and programs. The pricing furor has also had an impact on company shares, bringing them to a historically low valuation.
At the hearing, Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah questioned why Mylan could now afford to offer a generic version of EpiPen for about $300. Those changes also gave Mylan renewed patent protection for EpiPen, insulating it from possible generic competition despite the fact that the drug was first approved almost three decades ago.
Cumming said making the generic version wasn’t good enough, and accused the company of using “the same PR playbook that other companies use”.
In 2015, EpiPen accounted for $1 billion of Mylan’s overall sales of $9.45 billion and about 20 percent of company profit. But his issue wasn’t with the profits or even the repeated price hikes or her salary. Participating companies pay 13 percent in rebates on generic drugs versus 23 percent on branded products.
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“People may want to criticize Mylan”, she said. He said executives for the company made $300 million over five years while the list price for a pair of the allergy shots rose.
