To keep EpiPen sales up, Mylan threatened states, sued making bogus claims | Hacker News Reader

To keep EpiPen sales up, Mylan threatened states, sued making bogus claims

arstechnica.com

156 pointskyleblarson35 comments

Of note: the CEO of Mylan, Heather Bresch, is also the daughter of the senior senator representing West Virginia, Joe Manchin, who was also the governor of the state from 2005-2010. Joe's wife (and Heather's mother) Gayle Manchin took over as the head of the National Association of State Boards of Education in 2012, and helped push through the 'EpiPen Law' in 2013 that gave funding preference to schools that stocked them. [0]

Much like fish, the head tends to rot first.

0: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/20/fami...

It gets even better (Mylan is in my hometown), from Wikipedia [1]:

"In 2007..the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Bresch had claimed to have an MBA degree from West Virginia University, but the university disputed that. The university subsequently awarded her an EMBA despite her having completed only 26 of the required 48 credits. Her father was governor of the state of West Virginia at the time.

In the ensuing controversy, the university announced in April 2008 that it would rescind Bresch's degree. Michael Garrison, WVU President at the time, was reported to be "a family friend and former business associate of Bresch" and a former consultant and lobbyist for Mylan. After a faculty vote of no confidence, Garrison and several university officials subsequently resigned."

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Bresch

At least the faculty had integrity.

Sounds like a lot of home cookin' going on there, with the EpiPen being only the crescendo of scandals caused by this group of family & friends.

It would be great if we could clean house and replace those acting in bad faith.

What recourse will we have against them? Do any of the punishments for our ruling class have teeth?

If you win, you become richer. If you lose, you... Lose your job at the state capitol?

Worse still: if you lose other people's money you get bailed out (oh, and no bonus for like 3 years or so).

what? no.. you can't take away their bonuses. that would be unfair: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15AIG.html

How is this not the purest form of corruption?!

I thought we had laws against this kind of obvious crap.

Why was the party designation omitted from Manchin? Had he been a Republican, I'm fairly certain it would have been included.

He's a democrat, it took just a second to look up. I don't know why you didn't just post that. Sleazy people in both parties - shocking news for no one.

Corruption is corruption. He's a centrist Democrat considering a party switch.

Happy now?

If you think party affiliation is relevant here, you have a lot to learn about WV politics.

Wow! Hospital supplies, prescription drugs and many other health care markets are effectively un-enterable by new innovative entrants through similar kinds of illegal, anti-competitive arrangements....probably one of the reasons we haven't seen a YC hospital supply startup... '

"EpiPen’s sales and expanded markets brought in more than $1 billion in revenue for Mylan." "The company’s CEO, Heather Bresch, is one of the highest-paid CEOs in the industry, earning nearly $19 million annually." "Mylan...had...illegal deals with schools to undercut competitors and allegedly scammed federal and state regulators out of millions..."

Actually, a good friend of mine just filed for a patent on a widget which will directly cut into Mylar's epipen sales. It's gonna be a tough startup, I'm sure, but he's doing it.

So what, 6 years to get through the FDA?

Start jailing people.

But the companies have to keep making abnormal profits, because the US subsidizes R&D for the rest of the world!

Their main r&d seems to be to stop others from getting approval for cheaper competitors.

No one said R&D needs to stay in product world. It's "business practice" R&D that rakes in the big bucks!

We are no strangers to this business^H^H^H^H^H^H^ legal plan.

https://davidkellogg.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/oracle-org-...

Wow. There is noway such strategies are not sanctioned at the top level. It would be interesting to see the CEO charged with malicious prosecution (which is not limited to criminal justice proceedings but includes fraudulent tort claims and suchlike).

It seems that it would uncontroversial and acceptable to both sides of Congress if they pursued creating a legal framework for making this sort of activity both illegal and with meaningful punishment. We can ban people from playing baseball for life, why not ban them from participating in the healthcare community?

I don't think so. Congress is full of corrupt people who would have too much to lose from passing such a law.

Why does an adrenaline shot have to cost that much?

Because most people don't know how to use hypodermic syringes. And because either too little or too much might kill the patient.

It doesn't explain or justify the price. It only explains the need for using such devices.

True, it doesn't account for Mylan's price. That mostly reflects anticompetitive behavior. But even the least expensive versions cost much more than multidose bottles and syringes.

Lack of available competition and bio patents.

Aren't those patents expired already? And there is competition after all. The point of the article was attempts to blackmail states to ban competitors without actually having legal basis for it.

Well, adrenaline certainly isn't under patent. But I believe that the delivery tech is.

And yes, Mylan has gone over the top in market manipulation. They're among the worst. It's rather like they've applied "Big Coal" corporate philosophy applied to drugs.

I don't think Mylan's behaviour is acceptable here, but there is something to be said about being able to patent a safe delivery mechanism for any type of medicine... that in itself isn't necessarily wrong.

Yes, there is. But sadly enough, the game isn't about who has the safest delivery mechanism.

Most of the "safety" in the delivery tech lies in the fact that there's only one dose of drug in the dispenser. Or, er, all of the safety? It's not an enormous achievement.

Hell, Mylan even has a competitor that made their own dispenser to avoid the patent, but ... now there are two of them playing largely the same game.

The hurdle here is FDA approval, not the innovation of delivery mechanisms. These are all relatively simple injectors, whose primary value lies in being single-dose.

Not defending Mylan or anything, but... there's more then 1 dose in an EpiPen: http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(13)00094-X/full...

It doesn't, which is why these states switched to more reasonably priced alternatives.

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