A growing chorus is calling on the Mylan pharmaceutical company to justify its price hikes on EpiPens, a potentially life-saving medication for children and others facing fatal allergies that has little real competition.
In 2007, a two-pack of the epinephrine-filled devices went for $56.64 wholesale, according to data gathered by Connecture, a health insurance technology and data analytics company. Now it’s jumped to $365.16, an increase of 544.77 percent. Since the end of 2013, the price has gone up by 15 percent every other quarter. (That’s about $600, retail price!)
“Amazing that Epipen prices in CA & EU with prescription are about $85. No govt negotiated buy in US,” said another tweet.
Even Martin Shkreli, the disgraced former chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC, has weighed in. “These guys are really vultures. What drives this company’s moral compass?” he said in a phone interview.
A backlash over Mylan’s pricing tactics is shedding light on its grasp of the market. After politicians, physicians and lawmakers criticized the price of EpiPen, Mylan offered to provide more financial help to patients, saying it would cover their insurance out-of-pocket costs up to $300, from $100 previously. It also said it would expand the number of low-income patients eligible to receive company subsidies. But the company didn’t roll back EpiPen’s high list price.
Mylan’s CEO acknowledged that high retail prices of EpiPens in the United States effectively subsidize the cost of the devices when they are sold in Europe, at just $100 or $150. Many of the countries there have government-run health-care systems that limit drug prices charged by manufacturers, unlike the U.S.