The generic brand that could hit the market at a $300 cost would still be three times higher than the cost of the EpiPen in 2007-when Mylan assumed rights to the product. Sign up for our daily email alerts.
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In a letter to Mylan CEO Heather Bresch, Brown requested answers to a series of questions on how the price hike has impacted access to EpiPens for OH consumers and how their corrective actions to date will effect consumers and taxpayers.
There’s now little competition for EpiPen. And like other drugmakers that increase prices sharply when generic competition is on the horizon, Mylan has been taking bigger annual price increases on EpiPens the last few years. She added that the decision to launch a generic version “is an extraordinary commercial response”, and said it “will offer a long-term solution to further reduce costs and ease the burden and complexity of the process on the patient”.
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.
The cheapest price of the EpiPen is now around $614 for two, but Mylan has made the unusual move of offering a cheaper package at $300 for two.
A generic competitor was expected in 2015 but has been delayed.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have chided the company for the price hike and called for investigations by the Federal Trade Commission.
Its only US competitor is Adrenaclick, a device sold by Impax Laboratories (IPXL.O) that has not caught on with patients and doctors.
But those moves won’t defray the cost of the “exorbitantly expensive” product for other health care players, including the government, insurance companies and employers, the senators said, which in turn pass those costs to consumers through premium payments. While Mylan has announced different savings programs to help uninsured or under-insured customers gain access to the name-brand drug, it’s not clear to what extent these programs will also be available for the generic EpiPen users. The company said almost 80 percent of patients with health insurance paid nothing extra for their EpiPens. The branded version of the EpiPen is unaffordable for consumers who are not insured or who have health plans with very high deductibles.
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Shares of Mylan rose 19 cents to $43.22 in trading Monday, while broader indexes rose.
