Mylan Chief Executive Heather Bresch, defending EpiPen’s price in an interview on Thursday on CNBC, said her company had spent hundreds of millions of dollars improving EpiPen, including making its needle invisible, since acquiring the device from German generic drugmaker Merck KGaA.
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Manchin spokesman Jon Kott said in an email Tuesday, “Right now we don’t have any comment” according to the Washington Post.
Bresch, 47, has been thrust in the spotlight in recent days after colleagues of her father Sen.
Price increases have helped transform the EpiPen into a billion-dollar business despite it being a decades-old product. He cited the cost to parents when children must have them and to schools that keep EpiPens on hand.
Two other senators, Democrats Mark Warner of Virginia and Richard Blumenthal of CT, also wrote the company about the high prices.
She called the price hike “outrageous – and it’s just the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers”, in a statement on Facebook.
In the past few years, the cost of the EpiPen, which is used as a live-saving treatment for allergic reactions, has risen to $614 for two pens, up from $100 for the pair. “But it’s wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them”, she said. She reincorporated her USA -based drug company in the Netherlands, which cut its tax liability. None other than U.S. Senator Joe Manchin’s daughter.
Clinton has released a detailed plan for dealing with exorbitant drug price hikes. But EpiPen, introduced in 1987, is so well known that most doctors prescribe it without considering Adrenaclick, and pharmacists can’t substitute that for EpiPen, said Evelyn Hermes-DeSantis, director of drug information services at Rutgers University’s pharmacy school.
Bresch made $18.9 million total compensation in 2015, 7.7 times greater than her $2.45 million pay when she was Mylan’s president in 2007.
“There’s no denying they raised the price a lot and make more money on this product now than any other product they sell”, said Wells Fargo analyst David Maris. Richard Blumentahl of CT, have written to Mylan about their concerns.
Clinton’s comments came after a bipartisan group of lawmakers called for investigations into the price increase of EpiPens, which are preloaded injections of epinephrine (adrenaline) that people use if they are having a risky allergic reaction that could result in death, if untreated. In a statement Monday, Mylan blamed rising health insurance deductibles for the increase in out-of-pocket payments for patients and emphasized its co-payment coupons and donations of 700,000 EpiPens to schools since 2013.
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“The issue here is not the identity of the CEO; it is predatory and problematic pricing and morally bankrupt exploiting of monopolistic power”, he said. She noted that the FDA does not have the authority to review or approve drug prices.
