Mylan hit with fresh lawsuit over EpiPen pricing
pharmafile | April 4, 2017 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing |Â Â Mylan, epipen, pricingÂ
Just as it faces worldwide reports that over 80,000 of its EpiPens do not function properly and as the FDA calls for a US-wide recall on the product, Mylan has been struck with another lawsuit as the pricing debacle concerning the epinephrine auto-injector rears its head again.
Mylan was likely hoping the furore surrounding its flagship product’s price tag had died down for good after the months-long scandal last summer, but now a group of purchasers represented by law firm Hagens Berman have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, alleging that it had “engaged in an illegal organised scheme to systematically increase EpiPen prices by 574%.”
The assertion once again centres on the same issue raised last year – that since it acquired distribution rights to the EpiPen in 2007, its price has increased 17 times from $90 to over $600.
“Mylan has tried every trick in the book to avoid taking accountability for the millions of people who are living without the EpiPen they need to prevent a life-threatening allergic reaction,” stated Steve Berman, managing partner at the firm. “Despite the fiction that Mylan has tried to sell the public, and sell Congress, the numbers don’t lie – Mylan has been the motivating force behind the jaw-dropping 574% EpiPen price hike.”
To mitigate the ongoing controversy, Mylan offered discount programmes and pledged to introduce a cheaper generic version, though that was ultimately unavailable to patients until the end of 2016. The company now faces perhaps the most significant blow to its reputation since the pricing scandal first erupted last year.
Matt Fellows
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