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Why Did Mylan Hike EpiPen Prices 400%? Because They Could
Mylan MYL -4.76% pharmaceutical company has a virtual monopoly on EpiPens after a voluntary recall felled their only competitor*, Sanofi’s Auvi-Q, over possible dosage miscalibrations. It’s not the drug being delivered that brings the bucks, though—epinephrine’s a cheap generic. The cost trickery is in the delivery system, the Mylan EpiPen.
The EpiPen’s been around since 1977, but Mylan acquired the autoinjector—which precisely calibrates the epinephrine dosage—in 2007. The patient now pays about 400% more for this advantage to receive a dollar’s worth of the lifesaving drug: EpiPens were about $57 when Mylan acquired it. Today, it can empty pockets of $500 or more in the U.S. (European nations take a different approach to these things).
It’s what the market will bear, so what’s the problem, right? Only this: Somewhere, right now, a cash-strapped parent or budget-limited patient with a severe allergy will skip acquiring an EpiPen. And someday, they will need it in a life-threatening situation involving exposure to a trigger…and they won’t have it. And they will die. Because they couldn’t afford the delivery mechanism for $1 worth of a drug to keep them alive. Two turning points, a death and one company at the crossroads.
Forbes Welcome
If It was up to me I'd take these greedy bastards out back behind their offices and execute them without a trial and put it out on national television so the world can see what should be done to this kind of sub-human trash. This should be considered first degree murder as soon as anyone dies because they can't afford to pay $500 for a $1 epipen.
Mylan MYL -4.76% pharmaceutical company has a virtual monopoly on EpiPens after a voluntary recall felled their only competitor*, Sanofi’s Auvi-Q, over possible dosage miscalibrations. It’s not the drug being delivered that brings the bucks, though—epinephrine’s a cheap generic. The cost trickery is in the delivery system, the Mylan EpiPen.
The EpiPen’s been around since 1977, but Mylan acquired the autoinjector—which precisely calibrates the epinephrine dosage—in 2007. The patient now pays about 400% more for this advantage to receive a dollar’s worth of the lifesaving drug: EpiPens were about $57 when Mylan acquired it. Today, it can empty pockets of $500 or more in the U.S. (European nations take a different approach to these things).
It’s what the market will bear, so what’s the problem, right? Only this: Somewhere, right now, a cash-strapped parent or budget-limited patient with a severe allergy will skip acquiring an EpiPen. And someday, they will need it in a life-threatening situation involving exposure to a trigger…and they won’t have it. And they will die. Because they couldn’t afford the delivery mechanism for $1 worth of a drug to keep them alive. Two turning points, a death and one company at the crossroads.
Forbes Welcome
If It was up to me I'd take these greedy bastards out back behind their offices and execute them without a trial and put it out on national television so the world can see what should be done to this kind of sub-human trash. This should be considered first degree murder as soon as anyone dies because they can't afford to pay $500 for a $1 epipen.
