The price hikes of the EpiPen allergy-drug injector are “shameless” and “deceptive”, and another example of drugmakers pricing their products at whatever the market will bear. The company hopes to have it ready by the end of the year.
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“I think we’re beginning to expose the tactics and the policies of not just Mylan, but other drug and pharmaceutical companies about how much profit they really make off of drugs”, Ferlo told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.
According to ABC News, only one company, Impax Laboratories, is now making an EpiPen alternative, called Adrenaclick.
On Tuesday, Franken, Klobuchar and 18 other senators challenged Mylan’s decision to maintain the price of its brand-name product while introducing a half-price “authorized generic” and increasing the value of company-issued discount coupons to be applied to the cost of EpiPens.
The high-cost of the EpiPen has sent many looking for alternatives.
Impax, however, doesn’t have the ability to manufacture a large quantity of the drug so it may not always be available. The Obama administration has taken repeated steps to make inversions less profitable, including establishing rules that were credited with dashing Pfizer’s deal to merge with Botox maker Allergen and move its headquarters to Ireland. That news put Bresch in a small group that the public sees as corporate villains that includes Martin Shkreli, the smirking investor who boosted the cost of an AIDS medication by 5,000 percent a year ago.
Imprimis has already had success in taking on expensive branded drugs with cheaper compounds.
According to Sheldon’s Express pharmacist, Jarrod Ramsey, the price of the EpiPen has been on a steady rise for years.
So how does it work? Now his company is planning a $100 compounded alternative to EpiPen. For every hugely successful drug, there are plenty of failures that can cost pharmaceutical companies tens of millions of dollars. By comparison, Mylan is a $23 billion giant with a workforce of almost 35,000. In 2012, a meningitis outbreak caused by a MA compounding pharmacy led to the deaths of 64 people.
“More must be doneand more quicklyto make this life-saving drug more affordable”, Sen.
An FDA spokeswoman said she could not elaborate on the findings, citing corporate confidentiality.
Currently Mylan has a near monopoly on the EpiPen and the company’s price increase has even forced emergency medical first responders to begin injecting patients with epinephrine using manual syringes-a less effective way of treating anaphylaxis.
“.it’s very much, as far as a business practice, is like selling basic necessities at inflated prices during a national disaster”.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the chairwoman of the Senate Aging Committee, said that patient assistance programs don’t help people participating in government healthcare programs like the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid and Medicare.
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“Tonight when I go home I’m going to eat a nice piece of fish and the fish I eat isn’t any better or worse than what she is going to eat”.
