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EpiPen prices increased 461% since 2007, execs give themselves raises

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See full article below. Company buys the rights to EpiPen, raises prices gradually then swiftly, raises salaries and ramps up lobbying. Consumers cant get a generic equivalent but there is none. Senator Klobuchar is recommending a Senate investigation.

Healthcare in America is great.


EpiPen prices aren't the only thing to jump at Mylan. Executive salaries have also seen a stratospheric uptick.

Proxy filings show that from 2007 to 2015, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch's total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068, a 671 percent increase. During the same period, the company raised EpiPen prices, with the average wholesale price going from $56.64 to $317.82, a 461 percent increase, according to data provided by Connecture.

In 2007 the company bought the rights to EpiPen, a device used to provide emergency epinephrine to stop a potentially fatal allergic reaction and began raising its price. In 2008 and 2009, Mylan raised the price by 5 percent. At the end of 2009 it tried out a 19 percent hike. The years 2010-2013 saw a succession of 10 percent price hikes.

And from the fourth quarter of 2013 to the second quarter of 2016, Mylan steadily raised EpiPen prices 15 percent every other quarter.

The stock price more than tripled, going from $13.29 in 2007 to a high of $47.59 in 2016.

And while sales of the life-saving drug rose to provide 40 percent of the company's operating profits in 2014, as Bloomberg reported, salaries for other Mylan executives also went up. In 2015, President Rajiv Malik's base pay increased 11.1 percent to $1 million, and Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Mauro saw his jump 13.6 percent to $625,000.

After Mylan acquired EpiPen the company also amped up its lobbying efforts. In 2008, its reported spending on lobbying went from $270,000 to $1.2 million,


http://www.nbcnews.com/business/con...es-they-hiked-epipen-prices-n636591?cid=sm_fb
 

Maximus.

Member
Healthcare should have different rules than other industries. Yes profits drive innovation in theory, it the product should not be unaffordable to the masses. Healthcare should be a right not a privilege.
 

Log4Girlz

Member
This is the USA, they should charge ten thousand dollars a pen. I mean, what's your life worth? This is what supply side Jesus would do.
 

johnny956

Member
It's sadly more and more stories like this that will finally get us to nationalized healthcare. Wish there was another way in the short term to get there
 

aeolist

Banned
Senator Klobuchar is recommending a Senate investigation.

this is the most ridiculous part

instead of making a system that actually works we incentivize gouging and then try to placate the poors getting fucked by pretending to wag our fingers at a company that's doing nothing illegal, when following a more altruistic course could see them facing a lawsuit from their shareholders for failing to maximize profits

and of course most of the time this flies under the radar because not enough big news stories are being written by journalistic outlets who have been mostly gutted by the market in the last few decades, so we're largely ignoring similar problems that are costing lives and health daily while putting completely ineffectual band-aids on gaping infected wounds
 

Mailbox

Member
It doesn't do any good kicking down ant hills if the entire yard is infested.

We need to attack the cause, not the symptoms.

A solution in Attacking the cause would take months if not years to produce if not to produce results. In the mean time plenty of people will die because they can't afford the medication.

You kind of need to attack the symptoms sometimes while attacking the cause!
 
Seriously though, if there is a citizen revolt over this stuff and their industry were to become nationalized, you'd have to think they brought this on themselves.
 

devilhawk

Member
There needs to be a rule that they can only charge within a certain percent range of what they charge other countries. If the companies are selling them at a loss in other countries, then too bad.

No longer should companies make all their profit in the US and sell for cheap everywhere else. We no longer should subsidize other countries' health systems.

In this instance, the company sells to Canada and the EU for a fraction of what they do in the US.
 
At this point, screw capitalism. Nationalize these abuser

This isn't capitalism's fault - this is just greed. Captialism would mean competitors could produce a competing product that would lower the price. This company has used the law to exclude other companies from producing the product, allowing them to drive up the price. That's the result of misuse of the law.

The problem is if you don't allow drug companies to profit enough, the expensive research and development to develop new lifesaving drugs won't be done. There's a balance there though. This is too far on the side of greed.
 

Dryk

Member
Healthcare should have different rules than other industries. Yes profits drive innovation in theory, it the product should not be unaffordable to the masses. Healthcare should be a right not a privilege.
In this case they didn't even invent the technology so the excuse that they're trying to recover costs doesn't hold up.
 

aeolist

Banned
This isn't capitalism's fault - this is just greed. Captialism would mean competitors could produce a competing product that would lower the price. This company has used the law to exclude other companies from producing the product, allowing them to drive up the price. That's the result of misuse of the law.

The problem is if you don't allow drug companies to profit enough, the expensive research and development to develop new lifesaving drugs won't be done. There's a balance there though. This is too far on the side of greed.

the market isn't good at determining which new drugs should be researched though, because it focuses on which ones will pull the most profit instead of which will have the optimal public health outcome

it should be entirely state-funded (which a lot of it is anyway) and directed by medical scientists
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Consumers cant get a generic equivalent but there is none.

There are alternatives but doctors aren't prescribing them. (Possibly because of payoffs, knowing how these things work.)
 
I know this is despicable. You know this is despicable. Anybody can see it plain as day! So how does this happen? Who needs to step in and regulate to stop these assholes from getting rich at the expense of humans lives? Is there something we can do?
 

Dalek

Member
These are the kinds of people that you actually root to be kidnapped in some real life Saw movie. Truly the worst of humankind.
 
I know this is despicable. You know this is despicable. Anybody can see it plain as day! So how does this happen? Who needs to step in and regulate to stop these assholes from getting rich at the expense of humans lives? Is there something we can do?

because the general population doesn't care.

people literally get more upset over a store running out of Half and Half than something like EpiPen raising in price 461%.
 

bigred50

Member
I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that only about 200 people die per year in the USA from food allergies.

Crazy what good marketing can do.
 

FiraB

Banned
I get mine for $150 in new zealand every six months, I could get one cheaper but I prefer not to take the risk. Charging that amount of one though is stupid and I could justify it but only if the money was actually going into research and development of life altering drugs, anyone like me that lives with a food allergies knows just how shit it can be.

I'm allergic to onions, so it cuts my social experiences in half (or well in half) and certainly makes travelling a living nightmare when I go out to eat. I carry several of these buggers when I go anywhere in Asia or Europe, just because it is a life saver but if I had to pay 300+ per epipen then I wouldn't ever travel.
 
Glad I finally have insurance to cover the cost of these for me. Though I managed to go nearly 15 years without one despite having a bee allergy.
 

n0razi

Member
I get more and more anti Capitalism as I get older... funny how it was shoved down our throats as the best when we were in grade school.
 

blackflag

Member
My kid has to have 2 of these at school, 2 at after school care, 2 for her moms house, 2 for my house....it really sucks. A couple weeks ago CVS tried to give us a package that expired in 2 months....CVS Please.....

edit: 2 months not 2 weeks
 

WaffleTaco

Wants to outlaw technological innovation.
There has been a lot of coverage about this recently. I think something will be done about it.
 
My kid has to have 2 of these at school, 2 at after school care, 2 for her moms house, 2 for my house....it really sucks. A couple weeks ago CVS tried to give us a package that expired in 2 months....CVS Please.....

edit: 2 months not 2 weeks


Shoot. Thats a lot.


Good news is that the company said it woukd "revisit" its pricing. So theyll probably try to run out the clock, hoping public attention wanes. Or theyll give a slight decrease. I guess we will see.
 

DedValve

Banned
Hopefully generic brands can be sold and this company and all the execs involved in this decision forever run out of this business. Pathetic bottom feeders.
 
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