With the monopoly locked down, Mylan made its next move, a plan to eliminate its single-pack EpiPen in the United States and instead require customers to purchase two pens at once. The two schemes were separate but mutually reinforcing. market, according to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but Adrenaclick was climbing quickly in market share.Ī Mylan deal with Pfizer would enrich both companies: By divesting from Adrenaclick and continuing to allow Mylan to sell the EpiPen at inflated prices, both firms would split the profits from the more expensive version, allowing Pfizer to earn more than if it drove down prices with its cheaper version. In 2010, EpiPen was dominant, controlling 91 percent of the worldwide market and 96 percent of the U.S. “We never intended this.”Īmid news of the King acquisition, Mylan, according to market analyst reports at the time, was worried that Pfizer would push ahead with its generic version and also cut Mylan out of the market. “Looking back, I wish we had better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration of the rising financial issues for a growing minority of patients who may have ended up paying the full price or more,” Bresch said. In 2016, Bresch testified before Congress about the price increases and expressed some limited regret that some customers had paid the full list price, while noting that many others paid less due to agreements with insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers. I understand your tender offer is closing today, so I would appreciate receiving your response as soon as possible.īresch did not respond to a request for comment, but Mylan has consistently said that it has done nothing wrong in how it sets the price of its EpiPens. In that discussion, you indicated that you would be divesting your Adrenaclick product once the Pfizer/King deal closes. I’m sending you this email as a reminder that you were to send me confirmation relative to our discussion regarding EpiPen. The email, sent on behalf of Bresch by her assistant, includes the subject line “Our discussion.” Gayle Manchin was recently confirmed to serve as co-chair of the federal Appalachian Regional Commission, a government agency tasked with promoting economic development across the region’s 13 states.Ĭutting a deal with Pfizer to divest from its competitor may be brazen enough, but to memorialize the agreement in an email produces a startling window into the ways in which corporate executives are able to manipulate markets. Meanwhile, Gayle Manchin, Bresch’s mother, lobbied states to require schools to stock epinephrine as the head of the National Association of State Boards of Education. Following the deal with Pfizer, Mylan drove the price above $600 within five years. The deal between Pfizer and Mylan led the former to withdraw its competitor from the market and partner with Mylan on Epipen, locking down a monopoly. King in 2010 announced it would be purchased by Pfizer, which was licensed to sell Adrenaclick, an EpiPen competitor, the previous year. The drug itself was produced by King Pharmaceuticals, which manufactured it exclusively for Mylan. The result of the deal with Merck was that Mylan manufactured part of the EpiPen delivery system, but not the medication itself, while owning the brand name and the right to distribute the whole product. In 2007, when Mylan acquired rights to market the drug from Merck (by buying its specialty pharmaceuticals subsidiary Dey), a two-pack cost less than $100, a tiny fraction of what it costs today. ![]() Eliminating its main competitor would then allow Mylan to continue raising its prices.Įmail on behalf of Heather Bresch. In the email, sent in January 2011, Bresch confirms a previous discussion with Read in which she says that the two agreed that as part of a deal, Pfizer would disinvest from its EpiPen competitor, Adrenaclick. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to her counterpart at Pfizer, then-CEO Ian Read. Late last week, the judge unsealed some of the documents underlying the plaintiffs’ case.Īmong the documents is an email sent on behalf of Bresch, who is the daughter of Sen. In June, Judge Daniel Crabtree issued a summary judgment partially siding with Mylan and partially siding with the plaintiffs, meaning the case goes on. The documents were released as part of an ongoing antitrust suit in federal court.
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