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Mylan's Epic EpiPen Price Hike Wasn't About Greed -- It's Worse, Lawsuit Claims (arstechnica.com)
Mylan engaged in a campaign to squash a rival to its EpiPen allergy treatment and artificially inflate the price of the drug to maintain a market monopoly, French drugmaker Sanofi said in a lawsuit. From a report: With the lofty prices and near-monopoly over the market, Mylan could dangle deep discounts to drug suppliers -- with the condition that they turn their backs on Sanofi's Auvi-Q -- the lawsuit alleges. Suppliers wouldn't dare ditch EpiPens, the most popular auto-injector. And with the high prices, the rebates wouldn't put a dent in Mylan's hefty profits, Sanofi speculates. Coupled with a smear campaign and other underhanded practices, Mylan effectively pushed Sanofi out of the US epinephrine auto-injector market, Sanofi alleges. The lawsuit, filed Monday in a federal court in New Jersey, seeks damages under US Antitrust laws.
>> Mylan's Epic EpiPen Price Hike Wasn't About Greed -- It's Worse
>> Mylan effectively pushed Sanofi out of the US epinephrine auto-injector market
Competitor A pushes competitor B out of the market to corner the market and drive up profits, right? In other words, it's about greed, right?
And Intel is still at the top of the heap. It's likely this behavior and it's repercussions will have little to no consequence to Mylan's overall profit.
Bank fiasco 2008 nobody sent to jail Drug companies and medical companies numerous antitrust and illegal anti consumer practices, nobody in jail Banks knowingly laundering drug money nobody in jail
love is just extroverted narcissism
People at companies for doing such things... Slaps on the hands with monetary fines and promises not to do it again isn't working.
I'd pay to actually watch some of the corporate schmucks get beaten within an inch of their life on live TV.
If Sanofi proves its case, the judge should permanently revoke all patents in and related to EpiPen.
Let's see which drug manufacturer wants to be the next one to kill the golden goose after that ruling.
Except the Republican senator's daughter.
To get some sanity in the drug marketplace there needs to be just a single price that the drug manufacturers charge. None of these crazy pricing schemes that really screw the uninsured or the underinsured that have to pay the top price.
It's not just drugs, the entire medical industry has these crazy deals where the little guy who is the least able to pay ends up paying the most.
the thing that bothers me with this story is that you have a disconnect between government funded healthcare, and profit seeking private corporations.
if you have a government entity such as medicare (or really any socialized institution), that essentially guarantees payment to a drug company for a treatment; coupled with a corporation which has a responsibility to shareholders to maximize profit.. The situation that arises absolutely incentivizes the company to charge as much as they can get away with, since after all the US gov't has essentially infinitely deep pockets. And a very similar situation arises with the military and higher education.
And the shitty thing is, any attempt by the government to reign in profit margins and/or maximum price on a drug company would be met with the usual right winger response of "less regulation, free market!" (And this is coming from a republican.. I just don't get mental gymnastics on this level.)
I had actually just finished reading this on Ars before coming here to see it at the top of the page. The summary leaves out a very important detail.
Sanofi is suing Mylan claiming that their underhanded attempts cost them business. While that may be true, I think that this may have a more severe impact on their sales:
"In 2015, Sanofi pulled Auvi-Q following quality control issues. The device has since been put back on the market by another pharmaceutical company, Kaléo. The list price of the newly released Auvi-Q is set at $4,500."
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
The free market will fix itself.
Their behavior deserves it. Their corporation is dissolved, all their executives (including Mizz Bresch) are banned from working in similar positions for life, and all their intellectual property is public domain.
Corporatism != Free Market
is $14.00 for two.
Just FYI.
it shows the difference between The Little Guy and the 0.0001% when a guy can get charged for standing next to an open beer bottle left on the street and a BEERCORP can have a cargo ship of beer smash open on a dock and no charges would be filed.
personally i think that the execs involved should go down for a couple hundred homicide charges (since i would bet that a buncha kids died as a result of this bovine manure)
We were able to get some Adrenaclick brand injectors at CVS recently for $10. I think it is $109 without coupon, still cheaper than Epipen. I had wondered about the coupons and discounts that the drug companies had, now it makes sense... they probably even write off the discounts on their taxes.
If memory serves me correctly, Intel / Microsoft were hit and lost lawsuits for this exact behavior.
Does Bill Gates own part of Mylan ? It sounds like his tactics.
Don't worry, the market will take care of it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
One is prosecuted, the other is not. If it were as you said, we could pressure our representatives to change the law.
As it is, we can change the law all we want, but it will never be enforced.
vs Justice Dems. We're trying to reign them in in the wake of Hilary's loss. But there's a lot of money out there.
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it's that quality control issues have negligible impact on sales unless there's a 100% death rate. Not among the drug's users, but among patients in general.
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There is a clause in the WTO licensing deal covering medical patents. Every national govt has the right to invoke it have a particular drug's patent suspended and have it manufactured as a generic if it is considered a public health emergency. For a drug where there is no alternative, which is shown to work and where the company is being unreasonable, the govt can always pull out the big gun. The US govt doesn't as its bought my Pharma lobbyists.
**Life is too short to be serious**
It is interesting*, in hindsight, recalling the talk of "death panels" citizens of countries with socialized medicine must supposedly suffer through.
* Footnote left as an exercise for the reader
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
We've had antitrust laws for over a century now, since Standard Oil was using similar tactics against competition. New "regulations" since then are mostly junk...
Law-suits brought by the unfairly injured competitor seems like the best means of resolving these problems.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The Mylan brand pain patch is $600 for 15 patches. The same strength and ingredient Mallinckrodt brand pain patch is $85 for 15 patches. Thanks Mylan, for raping my wallet.
Sigh... It's sad to watch the "peanut panic" crowd -- the people who claim all sorts of wild stats about allergy deaths unsupported by evidence -- and the companies that make money by giving them a soapbox. This US/UK-centered phenomenon is a cultural and economic situation, not a medical one. According to the Centers for Disease Control/CDC researchers and American Medical Association/AMA's actual reputable scientists (not med mfr salespeople), the verified death rate from the relevant allergens has been consistent for 50+ years, as long as they've been keeping statistics. No significant rise.
What *has* happened is the massive thousand-fold rise in the number of people *diagnosed* with *some* anaphalactic reaction to peanuts and a zillion other irritants. When more people get *informed* there is a risk, the risk gets wildly exaggerated because of medical liability to any medical provider that does not address the completely-consistent-not-rising remote possibility of fatal reaction. And that translates into sales of expensive epi-pens from the company that conveniently funded the first and oft-cited major study into peanut allergy. And keeps funding other shoddy whitepapers on the topic. And keeps raising prices.
These guys are thieves. Those people are fools. Nothing new under the sun.
I think not...(*poof*)
Well, whatever they actually did, they were accused of jacking their prices back up after driving the competition away.
This is one of those cases, when the facts do not really matter, ha-ha, only the public perception does...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
To me this sounds like it was about power and monopoly. That's a bit worse than just greed, which is bad enough on its own. But I'll grant that there was a large component of greed in the actions.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Money is a medium of exchange that equates my work to yours.. crafted so that we all add to the social value that the currency represents. Or .. that what I had heard. Did this Martin Shkreli dipweed start or just hilite the greed that is making healthcare too expensive? Good money for Good service, but aspirin does not cost $10. per tab and any Asswipe that thinks thats a good idea needs to be held accountable.
Time for a new Political party in the US (or two!) One is off the rails Other cant pony up a leader.
What is/was Sanofi charging for their competing product?
Sounds like it really may be past time to curb corporate crap of every kind!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.