“The greed is astounding, it’s sickening, it’s disgusting,” said Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) as he summed up his thoughts during the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s hearing to plumb the surging price of life-saving EpiPens. “And I am a very conservative, pro-business republican.”
So was the rest of the committee, but the hearing still dragged on for nearly six-and-a-half hours into the late evening Wednesday. Throughout, Congress members on both sides of the aisle grilled and chastised Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan Inc., maker of EpiPens. With only one small competitor, Mylan holds 90 percent of the market share on epinephrine auto-injectors, which reverse deadly allergic reactions. Since buying the EpiPen in 2007, the company has raised the price 15 times, totaling a 500 percent increase. EpiPens went from roughly $50 each to $608 for a pack of two. Millions of people—mostly children—must constantly have access to a pen. During the hearing, several congress members spoke of the countless teary parents they have spoken with who are struggling to afford the devices they have no choice but to buy.
Yet, while consumers were grappling with medical bills, Bresch saw her company’s profits soar as well as her own salary. Her compensation rose from $2.4 million in 2007 to nearly $19 million in 2015—a point Duncan was happy to clarify after Bresch told the committee that her current salary was around $18 million.
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Source: Ars Technica – EpiPen maker CEO to seething lawmakers: We’re doing the world a favor