Mylan CEO to testify in hearing on EpiPen price increases

Mylan pharmaceutical executives are slated to testify before the House Oversight Committee next Wednesday over the company’s wildly controversial EpiPen price increases.

Some analysts have suggested that Mylan raised prices on the product partly because of incentives approved by the company’s board, including a 2014 long-term incentive plan that rewards executives if they meet ambitious growth targets averaging 16% annually, according to the Journal. The price has been rising from a cost of about $100 in 2008. A Mylan spokeswoman confirmed Bresch will be at the hearing.

The Republican chairman of the committee and the panel’s top Democrat said in a statement that there is “justified outrage” from families and schools struggling to pay for the emergency allergy shots. The Senate Aging Committee has requested briefings on the issue.

Mylan chief executive Heather Bresch, the daughter of Sen. Mylan has said it will make its own generic EpiPen, although critics have pointed out that could earn the company even more money than its $608 name-brand EpiPen.

EpiPen, which has annual sales of about $1 billion, delivers a potentially life-saving dose of epinephrine by injection into the thigh to counter unsafe allergic reactions, including to peanuts and bee stings. “The good news is that the FDA has already approved four epinephrine auto-injectors to treat anaphylaxis in an emergency, and two are now marketed”, the agency said in its blog post.

Doug Throckmorton, the deputy director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, will also testify.