Prior to events that have unfolded over the last few weeks many people may have heard the term EpiPen in passing without really giving much thought to what it was. If you are someone who does not know what an EpiPen is, you have most likely heard the term recently because of the fact that EpiPen, which is an epinephrine auto-injector used to treat allergy reactions, has seen its price rise from $57 in 2007 to about $500 in 2016.
Mylan, the makers of EpiPen, are lobbying to have the lifesaving allergy treatment added to a federal list of preventive medical services, a move which would reduce or eliminate the out-of-pocket cost for families who need it, by putting the financial burden of the price increase on employers and insurance companies. That is their big strategy, to avoid making themselves look like the bad guys by simply shifting the cost.
However, while this may make it easier on the families who need them, it will affect those employers and insurances companies, which will still affect the families, possibly by causing employers to make cuts because of this additional cost or the insurance companies will have to raise premiums to cover the cost.
This lobbying effort has many people behind it, such as Dr. Leonard Fromer, an assistant clinical professor of family medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles who promoted the idea in the prestigious American Journal of Medicine.
Then there is Tonya Winders, the president and CEO of the Allergy and Asthma Network who said, “We can save lives by ensuring access to these medications.”
The big problem with this that many families who need EpiPens for their children need to have one at their school as well as for any extracurricular activities such as sports or clubs. The EpiPens have to be provided by the family for both the school nurse’s office and the leader of any activities, one for school and each additional event, as well as one to be carried by the family member. So if you have a very active child you may need to provide several EpiPens.
If EpiPen, which is a reactionary medicine, not a preventive one, gets approved to be on the list, Mylan will continue to benefit and can raise the price however many times they want. Coincidentally, there is no generic equivalent for EpiPen and no direct competitor.
Mylan’s move to raise prices comes from their CEO Heather Bresch about a year after a scandal in which Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price on Daraprim, an AIDS medication, from $13.50 a pill to $750 overnight. Shkreli was later arrested on unrelated fraud charges, but faced no repercussions for the dramatic price hike.
Like Shkreli, Bresch will most likely not face any punishment for her company’s price hike of EpiPens. Of course unlike Shkreli, Bresch’s father is Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia. So instead of facing any kind of charges for corporate greed, she could use the government, most likely with help from her father, to find a way to justify that greed and get away with it.
