Grassley presses EpiPen maker on 400 percent price increase

The Hill
By Peter Sullivan
Aug. 22, 2016

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is asking the maker of EpiPens to explain sharp increases in the device’s price.

Grassley wrote a letter to Mylan, the company that makes EpiPens, asking for an explanation of a 400 percent increase in the price since 2007.

“The substantial price increase has caused significant concern among patients,” Grassley, who is up for reelection this year, wrote in a letter to the company. “I have heard from one father in Iowa who recently purchased a refill of his daughter’s EpiPen prescription. He reported that to fill the prescription, he had to pay over $500 for one EpiPen.”

The cost of the widely used device, which injects epinephrine as a treatment for serious allergic reactions, has been receiving growing attention.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a separate letter on Monday, calling for a Federal Trade Commission investigation of whether Mylan committed anti-trust violations surrounding its pricing of EpiPens.

The issue of rising drug prices more broadly has been a hot topic on the campaign trail, particularly for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Grassley, who has been targeted by Democrats in this fall’s election, has been one of the Republicans who has put the most spotlight on the issue.

For example, he sponsored a bipartisan bill with Klobuchar to crack down on deals where brand-name pharmaceutical companies pay makers of cheaper generic drugs to keep the alternative off the market.

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