How Parents Harnessed the Power of Social Media to Challenge EpiPen Prices

The funny thing is that Epipens have been really expensive for a while. Sure they took a 15% price increase over the past year. The price has been over $400 for a two pack for a while.<p>The reason why this has come to a head is high deductible health plans. This is where you pay the first $1000-$6000 in medical costs before insurance kicks in. When all it was was a $30 copay, consumers didn&#x27;t give a shit.<p>So maybe, just maybe, pushing more medical costs to patients will actually create the pressure needed to reduce medical costs? Interesting thought.

Mylan didn&#x27;t reduce the retail price. They&#x27;re giving out coupons and offering deals for poor people. Insurance companies and schools are still paying full price.<p>A comparable device, the Emerade Auto-Injector, made by Bausch and Lomb &#x2F; Valeant, sells for £26.94 in the UK.[1][2] The UK, of course, has socialized medicine.<p>The company behind Emerade is more into cutting deals with other pharmaceutical companies than bringing prices down.[3] &quot;Valeant’s strategy is to focus on the business of core geographies and therapeutic classes, manage pipeline assets through strategic partnerships with other pharmaceutical companies and deploy cash with an appropriate mix of selective acquisitions, share buybacks and debt repurchases. Our leveraged research and development model is one key element to this business strategy and will allow us to advance development programs to drive future commercial growth, while minimizing research and development expense.&quot;<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.emerade.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.emerade.com&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psuk.co.uk&#x2F;everyday-items-disposables&#x2F;dental-instruments-disposables&#x2F;emerade-auto-injector" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psuk.co.uk&#x2F;everyday-items-disposables&#x2F;dental-ins...</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ir.valeant.com&#x2F;~&#x2F;media&#x2F;Files&#x2F;V&#x2F;Valeant-IR&#x2F;documents&#x2F;valeant-102315.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ir.valeant.com&#x2F;~&#x2F;media&#x2F;Files&#x2F;V&#x2F;Valeant-IR&#x2F;documents&#x2F;v...</a>

What a heartwarming story that completely distracts the public from the real political scandal behind EpiPen.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chicagotribune.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;ct-epipen-ceo-bresch-salary-20160824-story.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.chicagotribune.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;ct-epipen-ceo-bresch-...</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;25&#x2F;business&#x2F;mylan-epipen-senate-manchin.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;25&#x2F;business&#x2F;mylan-epipen-sena...</a>

&gt; Some of the most prominent groups — Food Allergy Research &amp; Education (FARE); the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA); and Allergy &amp; Asthma Network — all have partnerships with Mylan for patient awareness campaigns and other programming. The groups aren’t required to disclose how much money they receive from the drug company, but Mylan, in its 2015 Social Responsibility report, lists all three groups as “allies.”<p>What Mylan learned here is that they didn&#x27;t have enough social media presence. I bet their had a meeting and didn&#x27;t say &quot;Yap we have been assholes about this, let&#x27;s roll back prices and appologize&quot; but rather &quot;People feel we are assholes. Who is responible for our social media and marketing? Action item 1) need to allocate more funds and hire a better PR company&quot;.

What I don’t understand in this story, who and how limited the competition?<p>The product costs a few bucks to produce, retails for $600, and not covered by patents: epinephrine discovered in 1901, the autoinjector is derived from military model likely in public domain.<p>How comes no one in the whole US wants to earn billions manufacturing a similar product and selling it for $50?

Pro tip for anyone in the northern tier of the US: drive north to Canada where the same EpiPen product is sold over the counter for around 120 $CAD. And there is no rule that you must buy two at a time.<p>Source: my son has a severe peanut allergy and I have successfully purchased EpiPens for him at the Lethbridge AB Costco.

Only in the most extreme edge cases can anything be done about the fact the the drug companies control the government which allows them overall to do just about anything they want.<p>This is one edge case but the overall picture is that drug companies own the government and ensure legislation is in place to give them astounding amounts of government and consumer cash.<p>It&#x27;s a silent coup.

The EpiPen thing is a really great example of two facts:<p>(1) It&#x27;s better to be in a business where you don&#x27;t (literally) save lives, because nobody complains about how much money the Pokemon game makes.<p>(2) People won&#x27;t actually take a lot of risk to market and develop life-saving products without a financial incentive.<p>Epinephrine is not patented. The only thing stopping a competitor from entering the market is coming up with a delivery mechanism for the drug that&#x27;s as reliable as Mylan&#x27;s. Apparently that has proven difficult. Sanofi used to make a competing device, until it was forced to do a mass recall because the device couldn&#x27;t deliver an accurate dosage.<p>The difficulty of getting it right is compounded by the fact that a device that delivers epinephrine to children in anaphylactic shock is just about the highest-risk product you can make from a potential liability point of view. There is no market for a &quot;slightly less good but much cheaper&quot; product.

The government should just use &#x27;eminent domain&#x27; and seize the rights to it. A few such cases would be enough to scare the rest of the industry to fall in line.

I wonder how long it will be before our infrastructure really starts to go south before people will wake up to what this country is becoming? I think a few bridges need to collapse before people get the idea that this is about &quot;pump and dump&quot; now, not investment in the future.

How do people think drugs get made? Takes a lot of effort, time, energy to get a drug made and FDA approved. Shouldn&#x27;t there be some incentive to accomplish this task? Wouldn&#x27;t there be an overall decrease in drug innovation if there was no money in it?