Mylan CEO Bresch hopes to tame the mob with a 50% discount for the EpiPen
Buckling under a storm of protest over its move to systematically raise the price of its life-saving EpiPen by 500%, Mylan announced this morning that it will produce a generic of the auto-injector and sell it for $300, or half price to the branded product.
CEO Heather Bresch, who has been the center of an intense public spotlight since the controversy broke out, once again blamed the whole thing on the industry supply chain. But that never garnered much sympathy from an outraged public, which saw the move as yet another example of price gouging from an industry unfettered by federal pricing restrictions. One of the company’s few defenders was Martin Shkreli, the disgraced biotech exec ousted from two companies and now awaiting trial on fraud charges. Hillary Clinton and a variety of leading politicians in Washington, DC, though, countered by calling Bresch on the carpet for profiteering, a hot top in drug industry circles, which has been treated to a steady series of pricing scandals from Shkreli, Mylan and Valeant.
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