Mylan and its CEO Heather Bresch are under fire. It raised the price of its EpiPen product — an essential protection for people with life threatening allergies — by a factor of five in the last eight years. Mylan’s statement defending itself clarifies what it’s doing — providing rebates — but evades the main issue of why it increased the price in the first place.
Here’s the dialogue between Mylan and the public, in a nutshell:
Public: Why is this thing so hellishly expensive?
Mylan: We’ll help you afford it with coupons and rebates.
Public: Why is this thing so hellishly expensive?
Mylan: We’re on your side. It’s the insurance regulations.
Public: Why is this thing so hellishly expensive???
RtMylan: We even give some away to schools!S
So Mylan’s position is that it won’t explain the massive price increase on a product where it has a monopoly on a generic medication product that millions of people could die without, a product that’s essentially unchanged from past years....
Perceptions matter but Mylan's decision seems to be "profits first!" Sloppy messaging at the least.