Casey said “These are lifesaving drugs that families need.Increasing the cost of EpiPen by 488 percent since 2009 made it more hard for middle class families to access these devices and puts lives at risk”.
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On Aug. 25, Mylan announced that it would help alleviate the outrageous out-of-pocket cost of EpiPens by providing patients with a $300 savings card, which would cover half the cost of a two-pack, Reuters reports.
The cost of the company’s allergy treatment has risen to about $600 from below $100 in 2009. In the past couple of years, the company has imposed two 15 percent price increases a year.
Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of CT and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota addressed the price hike at press conferences alongside doctors and affected families Wednesday.
The American Medical Association, which represents almost a quarter of a million doctors, also knocked Mylan for raising the price even though the product is “unchanged” since 2009.
The new moves will probably not fully mollify the critics.
While the middlemen, such as those who distribute the drugs and insure patients, are important topics to consider when looking at the pricing of drugs as a whole, it doesn’t matter so much in Mylan’s case, Grassley said.
“Offering a meager discount only after widespread bipartisan criticism is exactly the same tactic used by drug companies across the industry to distract from their exorbitant price increases, as our investigation has shown repeatedly”, Cummings said in a statement.
“The Epinephrine Auto-Injector is a vital part of our family’s healthcare, as it is for the many that are at risk”. It is pressed against the thigh and automatically injects the drug. “And the pharmacist said, listen many people do cancel because the cost is very expensive for the average working man”.
So patients with co-payments of less than $300, which means most patients, would have no out-of-pocket cost if they use the coupon.
Richardson tells 47ABC, the problem with the savings cards offered by Mylan Thursday is that it still leaves a big price to pay.
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Mylan said Thursday that it was doubling the eligibility for its patient assistance program to people with incomes four times higher than the federal poverty level. Drug companies are not allowed to provide copay assistance to such patients because it is considered a kickback, an illegal financial inducement to get someone to use a product for which the government is then billed. The other parties, it said, get $334 per prescription, or $1.3 billion a year. An additional $334 goes to pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, wholesalers and pharmacy retailers.
