{"id":5246,"date":"2016-08-29T18:20:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T22:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.khpi.org\/blog\/?p=5246"},"modified":"2016-08-29T18:20:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T22:20:07","slug":"mylan-drug-company-drops-price-of-epipen-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.khpi.org\/blog\/mylan-drug-company-drops-price-of-epipen-sort-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Mylan Drug Company Drops Price of EpiPen \u2013 Sort Of!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"epipen-image550\"<\/a>Mylan Pharmaceuticals\u00a0is really feeling the heat. \u00a0An outpouring of outrage over its exorbitant pricing for EpiPen has caused it to announce plans<\/a> to offer a generic version of the product for half the $600+ dollars of the branded version. The EpiPen is a self-injecting device used for life-saving rescue of individuals with anaphylaxis, a severe form of allergic reaction. (See my recent article<\/a>\u00a0for background.) \u00a0Mylan joined the new “gouge-em if you can” industry club by\u00a0buying a old standard drug and jacking up the price to\u00a0astronomical amounts\u00a0assuming we patients had no recourse\u00a0but to raid our kids’ college accounts to pay for it. \u00a0How broken is a system that has the same company selling the same drug at two vastly different prices in the same country? \u00a0I guess Mylan\u00a0assumes it is still\u00a0acceptable\u00a0to rip-off patients with health insurance. \u00a0This face-saving move is yet\u00a0another confirmation of the hypocrisy of our two-or-more-tiered healthcare system, and the absurdity of our drug pricing non-system. The only way for Mylan to get out of this public relations hole it is digging is to give EpiPen away for free as a public service\u00a0to\u00a0anyone who needs it!<\/p>\n

My real-life story<\/strong>.
\nBy coincidence, this morning, and before I learned of Mylan’s crisis management maneuver, I went to my local drugstore to pick up a renewal of my own\u00a0prescription for thyroxine, one of the most commonly prescribed drugs. \u00a0The drug has been around forever and in generic versions to boot. \u00a0It is really cheap. Nonetheless, I was surprised to see the cash register ring up a co-pay of $47 for my three months supply \u2013 I had been paying $15 for the 90 days. \u00a0Had the price of my life-saving drug tripled in only three months? Not at all!<\/p>\n

Through an artifact of my doctor’s electronic medical record, the renewal automatically sent to the drugstore assumed I would pay for it using my Humana Medicare Part-D drug insurance plan. \u00a0Little did the computer know that I have been paying out-of-pocket for my thyroxine because it was a lot less expensive to pay in cash. \u00a0I have no idea what Humana would have paid\u00a0for a drug that drugstores and supermarkets give away for pennies.\u00a0I had\u00a0already lost my confidence that pharmacy benefit managers\u00a0(PBMs) act in my best interest. \u00a0In fact, in their earliest days, weren’t \u00a0they owned or backed by the drug companies themselves? \u00a0Who can enlighten us on current\u00a0relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and the third parties\u00a0that funnel their products to us consumers?<\/p>\n

\"generic-adrenaclick-package-550\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mylan was copying another company’s\u00a0strategy.<\/strong>
\nAfter straightening out my own issue (which saved me the price of two Martinis) I asked my friendly personal\u00a0pharmacist about EpiPen, and specifically if there was an available alternative. \u00a0As it happens, there was! Amedra Pharmaceutials, the maker of\u00a0the brand name EpiPen-alternative Adrenaclick; must have authorized the company, Linear Therapeutics, to market a generic version of their product. \u00a0Mylan was simply following this path! \u00a0I should note however, that had I wished to pay cash for the product my pharmacist put on the counter, I would have had to\u00a0pay\u00a0$494 for a two-pack. \u00a0I assume this represents another example of shadow-pricing to get a\u00a0share of the loot.\u00a0It used to be that generics were much less<\/span> expensive than their brand name versions. \u00a0Now they are only\u00a0less<\/span> expensive! \u00a0I do not know if there is a business relationship between Lineage Therapeutics and Amedra Pharmaceuticals, but I will\u00a0not be surprised to see the length of the shadow shorten to match the $300 price of the promised generic version of EpiPen.<\/p>\n

I am not impressed. \u00a0It is my opinion\u00a0that these companies have no sense of shame in this matter. I suspect that Mylan would have marketed a generic anyway just to keep abreast of its competitor. If there had not been the public outcry that got our elected representatives moving, I believe the prices for these products would be rising rather than falling. \u00a0They are still too high. I don’t like the way the “free market” works in the healthcare and in particular, the pharmaceutical industries. Surely there is a better way.<\/p>\n

Peter Hasselbacher, MD
\nPresident, KHPI
\nEmeritus Professor of Medicine, UofL
\n29 Aug 2016<\/p>\n

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