WASHINGTON (AP) – The head of pharmaceutical company Mylan is defending the cost for life-saving EpiPens, signaling the company has no plans to lower prices despite a public outcry and questions from skeptical lawmakers.
“Price and access exist in a balance, and we believe we have struck that balance,” Heather Bresch says in prepared testimony released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ahead of her Wednesday appearance before the panel.
The price of EpiPens has grown to $608 for a two-pack, an increase of more than 500 percent since 2007. Republicans and Democrats have said families struggling to pay for the emergency allergy shots have every right to be outraged by Mylan, a company whose sales are in excess of $11 billion.
Bresch says in the testimony that she wishes the company had “better anticipated the magnitude and acceleration” of the rising prices for some families.
“We never intended this,” she says.