Mylan CEO Heather Bresch is expected to refuse to lower the $600 price of the allergy drug EpiPen at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
Bresch is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to address concerns over a price increase of 400 percent for the life-saving allergy treatment. However, her opening statement does not include any promises of lowering the price or providing more discounts beyond what Mylan has already announced.
“Looking back, I wish we had better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration of the rising financial issues for a growing minority of patients,” according to Bresch’s opening statement. “We never intended this. We listened and focused on this issue and came up with a sustainable solution.”
A few weeks ago, Mylan announced a $300 discount and also will offer a cheaper version available at $300, half the $600 price. The company also expanded its patient assistance program.
In her opening statement, Bresch attempts to shift focus to access provided by Mylan, saying that about 85 percent of EpiPen patients pay less than $100 for a two-unit package and a majority pay less than $50.
“In the more than eight years we have owned the EpiPen product, we have worked diligently and invested to enhance the product and make it more available,” Bresch’s testimony says.
Her opening statement also touches on the costs Mylan devotes to research and development, saying that in 2016 it will spend $1.2 billion in research and manufacturing facilities. She said the company has invested $1 billion in research into improving EpiPen since acquiring it in 2007.
Research and development costs are a common defense of the pharmaceutical industry, especially for new, brand-name products.
It is not clear if Bresch’s appearance will provide the answers sought by lawmakers, advocates and experts about the sharp price increases.
“There is justified outrage from families and schools across the country struggling to afford the high cost of EpiPens,” according to a joint statement from committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and top Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings, of Maryland, last week when the hearing was announced. “We look forward to receiving answers … from Mylan about its dramatic price hike for this life-saving medication.”
Mylan has been pointing “the finger quite a bit at everybody else in the supply chain and claiming their gigantic investments in marketing as some sort of public service,” said Peter Maybarduk, the director of access to medicines for consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
Mylan recently held a major advertising campaign with actress Sarah Jessica Parker that focused on the dangers of anaphylactic shock, which EpiPen treats. Parker severed ties with Mylan once news of the price spike surfaced.
An expert wanted to know about patient access to the drug, especially with the $600 price tag.
“There are going to be kids who are going to die because their parents couldn’t afford an EpiPen,”said Gerard Anderson, professor with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “You’ve got a $600 item and it lasts for only a year and you are taking a risk that your kid who has a peanut allergy or something like that is not going to need it in the next year because you can’t afford the $600.”
Anderson said he hopes the hearing, which also will feature testimony from a Food and Drug Administration official on the generic drug approval process, will help build momentum toward a congressional solution to high prices.
He pointed to certain Obama administration actions that have already taken place. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration changed a rule that enables the agency to expedite review of a generic drug if it will compete with another generic that has no competition.
There has been little congressional action on high drug prices besides the hearing. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton put out a plan to address high prices that includes allowing Medicare to negotiate for higher prices and demand higher rebates for Medicaid.
Maybarduk said that an unfavorable outcome from the hearing is to mistake Mylan as an outlier in the pharmaceutical industry. A recent report from the General Accountability Office found that 300 generic drugs increased in price by 100 percent from 2010 to 2015.
“The problem of price spikes is an industry-wide problem,” he said.
