Pharma goon Mylan continues their attempts to explain the skyrocketing price of their EpiPen. The company and its nepotistic connections to government sent CEO Heather Bresch in front of a congressional inquiry into the price hike, where she tone-deafly claimed that Mylan has poured “more than one billion dollars” into “enhancing” and making the re-issued EpiPen “more available” to the world. Well, that’s a lot of money. According to NBC News, pharmaceutical companies usually claim around $2.6 billion in investment costs, that they try to recoup over 20 years. However, those “costs” include developing, researching, creating the drug/device that they have patented.
But Mylan didn't invent the EpiPen, it acquired it in 2007, getting a drug that had been approved since 1987 and had 90 percent market dominance. Nor does it manufacture the EpiPen itself. Mylan buys it from a wholly owned Pfizer subsidiary for $34.50 per pen.
NBC found Dr. Julie C. Brown, a University of Washington School of Medicine pediatric emergency physician who took apart the old EpiPen and Mylan’s billion-dollar improved version:
"You can see that the essence of the device, the core of both devices, is essentially the same," she told NBC News. "In the redesigned EpiPen, there is some really intelligent engineering that has gone into the design of the needle cover. Does that justify the cost?"
Here’s a visual aid for you at home, from Dr. Brown’s very active Twitter account.
Since Dr. Brown is not an engineer, NBC sent new and old EpiPen’s to a UK technology firm that creates auto-injectors for companies like Pfizer.
"It's the same core device that's been in use for some time," Kevin Deane, head of medical technologies for PA Consulting Group, told NBC News.
He noted that the drive spring in the new device was more "robust" than with other similar devices, and "held a lot of energy."
According to Mylan and their CEO Ms. Bresch, they spent the majority of that billion on outreach for “access and awareness programs.” Maybe that’s code for “lobbyists and lobbyists?”