A group of 20 senators called the recent price-lowering overtures from the company that makes the EpiPen emergency auto-injector a “well-defined industry tactic to keep costs high through a complex shell game.”
Mylan has faced a backlash from Congress, as well as from parents of children with severe and life-threatening allergies, over its nearly 550% list-price increase over eight years. Since it acquired the rights to the EpiPen in late 2007, Mylan has increased the list price of a two-pack to $608.61.
In a letter Tuesday to Mylan chief executive Heather Bresch, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and colleagues described Mylan’s discount programs as “short-term co-pay assistance for expensive drugs,” but noted that “insurance companies, the government and employers still bear the burden of these excessive prices.”