The price of EpiPens has grown to $608 for a two-pack, an increase of more than 500 percent since 2007.
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USA Today reported earlier today that Manchin’s wife and Bresch’s mother, Gayle Manchin, had started an effort to have EpiPens placed in schools across the US, which may have increased their popularity in school settings.
Marianne Udow-Phillips, director of the University of Michigan’s nonpartisan Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation, said Mylan’s profit margin on the EpiPen will fluctuate depending on the payer.
This was after Bresch became CEO at Mylan, in 2012.
The EpiPen is an automatic injector created to treat life-threatening allergic reactions to anything from nuts to bee stings, delivering a dose of epinephrine through a quick jab in the thigh.
“I look forward to reviewing their response in detail and working with my colleagues and all interested parties to lower the price of prescription drugs and to continue to improve our health care system”, Manchin said.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released the testimony ahead of her Wednesday appearance before the panel.
“I think many people incorrectly assume we make $600 off each EpiPen”, according to Bresch’s prepared testimony, which was obtained by CNNMoney on Tuesday.
“We never intended this”, she says. That probe has led to the revelations that the mother of Mylan’s CEO may have played a hand in ramping up the sales of Epinephrine injectors by abusing her position in NASBE. Joe Manchin (D-WV), has constituents who would rather see his daughter get taken to the woodshed for a lecture on price gouging.
Her perspective is unlikely to assuage the committee members, who have heaped an unusually bipartisan chorus of criticism on Mylan over the EpiPen matter. In fact, she added, “There have been a number of epinephrine auto-injectors (EAIs) that have come on the market over the years, including Adrenaclick, Twinject and Auvi-Q”.
Kaiser noted that because its analysis is based on data that is only available up to 2014, “our estimates do not reflect additional EpiPen price increases that have occurred since then”.
Holding up an EpiPen, he said: “the actual juice that’s in here that you need costs about a dollar”. Drugmakers pay Medicaid rebates of at least 23.1% of the average manufacturer price for branded drugs and 13% on generic drugs.
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The spokeswoman said that the pending launch of a generic version of EpiPen will cut the wholesale acquisition cost in half, to $300, which “will directly benefit Medicare Part D patients”.
