Sanders: Drug Companies Gladly Raise Prices While Customers Die

Mylan N.V., distributor of the EpiPen, has raised the price of the lifesaving product by 400 percent. Such price gauging would typically elicit Congress to call the company’s CEO, in this case Heather Bresch, to testify, however, Bresch is Sen. Joe Manchin’s daughter.

“I am deeply concerned by this significant price increase for a product that has been on the market for more than three decades, and by Mylan’s failure to publicly explain the recent cost increase, which places a significant burden on parents, schools and other purchasers of the EpiPen,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Democratic from Virginia, noted August 22 in a statement, reports Bloomberg.

Since 2012, Mylan donated more than 700,000 EpiPens to schools across the country, allowing them to use four free auto-injectors. However, the schools would have to purchase any additional pens.

“This is a company that lobbied to put their product in all public schools – in elementary schools and high schools,” Toluse Olorunnipa, of Bloomberg, said. “And, the federal government complied, and Congress passed a bill allowing them to do that. And to see them raise their prices has sort of made a lot of Congressmembers a little bit upset about that, and that may make them push back a little bit harder on this idea that they may be able to continue at these high level of prices.”

Mylan now joins a string of pharmaceutical companies who have come under fire for price hikes. Turing Pharmaceuticals AG and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International are two notable recent examples.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has weighed in on the controversy.

“Something is very, very wrong when drug companies value their profits over the lives of their customers,” Sanders tweeted on August 24. “It is time to enact prescription drug policies that work for everyone, not just the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry.”

“While Americans are dying because they can’t afford Mylan’s egregious drug prices, the company’s CEO got a 671% raise to over $18 million,” Sanders continued. “Mylan has raised prices more than 20% on 24 medications, and more than 100% on seven medications. The quality of Mylan’s drugs isn’t improving, but the company thinks it is acceptable to quadruple their prices.”

Sources: Bloomberg, Bernie Sanders via Twitter / Photo Credit: Bernie Sanders/Instagram