Epipen & Monopoly
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Mylan pharmaceutical company has a virtual monopoly on EpiPens after a voluntary recall felled their only competitor*, Sanofi’s Auvi-Q, over possible dosage miscalibrations. It’s not the drug being delivered that brings the bucks, though—epinephrine’s a cheap generic. The cost trickery is in the delivery system, the Mylan EpiPen.
The EpiPen’s been around since 1977, but Mylan acquired the autoinjector—which precisely calibrates the epinephrine dosage—in 2007. The patient now pays about 400% more for this advantage to receive a dollar’s worth of the lifesaving drug: EpiPens were about $57 when Mylan acquired it. Today, it can empty pockets of $500 or more in the U.S. (European nations take a different approach to these things).
Why can Mylan charge so much for EpiPens? Give two reasons.