Mylan CEO defends high EpiPen prices; no plans to discount
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON– The head of pharmaceutical company Mylan is defending the cost for life-saving EpiPens and is signaling the company has no plans to lower prices despite a public outcry.
“Price and access exist in a balance, and we believe we have struck that balance,” Heather Bresch says in prepared testimony released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ahead of her Wednesday appearance before the panel.
The price of EpiPens has grown to $608 for a two-pack, an increase of more than 500 percent since 2007. Republicans and Democrats have said families struggling to pay for the emergency allergy shots have every right to be outraged by Mylan, a company whose sales are in excess of $11 billion.
Bresch says in the testimony that she wishes the company had “better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration” of the rising prices for some families.
“We never intended this,” she says.
But she says investments are necessary to ensure more access for those who need it and the company has made strides to more widely distribute the drug to schools and others.
“We don’t want to go back to a time — not that long ago — when awareness of anaphylaxis was much lower and epinephrine auto injectors were only available in schools with a prescription for an individual child,” she says. “Achieving this level of expansion of awareness requires significant investment.”
Bresch has some familiarity with Capitol Hill — she is the daughter of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.