When immediate relief from an allergic reaction can be a matter of life or death, the EpiPen epinephrine injector can save the day. The user snaps the device sharply into his or her thigh and a needle injects a fast-acting remedy.
More than 3.6 million prescriptions for EpiPen kits (two injectors and a needle-free training device) were written in 2015, according to IMS Health.
But Mylan, the manufacturer of this live-saving item, has raised the price — from $93.88 for a pair of EpiPens in 2007, to $608.61.
According to Mylan’s website, “EpiPen® Auto-Injector has been the most prescribed epinephrine auto-injector in the U.S. for more than 25 years.”
Actually, there hasn’t been a generic equivalent, but the company recently announced it plans to make a generic available at half price — a mere $300.
The CEO of Mylan, Heather Bresch, is on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list for the fifth year. According to Forbes, she predicted Mylan’s annual sales this year will be as high as $11.5 billion.
This kind of price gouging isn’t new; Mother Jones magazine noted that last year, Turing Pharmaceuticals increased the prices of an AIDS treatment and a malaria medication by 5,000 percent.
Pharmaceutical companies justify their outrageous prices by noting the high cost of developing and testing life-saving products. Indeed, we want drug companies to keep looking for new breakthroughs and that means they have the right to make a profit. One pro-pharma pundit, National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson, has gone so far as to suggest that Hillary Clinton’s plan for legislation to curtail overly inflated pricing would cause lives to be lost, because future research would be inhibited.
Clinton’s plan: “Pharmaceutical manufacturers should be required to explain significant price increases, and prove that any additional costs are linked to additional patient benefits and better value. ... In addition, when it comes to treatments like delivering epinephrine that have been available for decades, my plan encourages the production of alternative products.”
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?