| Mercury News published a great article on price breakdown
of Mylan's Epi-pen, which describes the cost of each component in the
auto-injector, calculated by Roland Krevitt and Bob Wallace. Before the scandal, two Epi-pen injectors were $608 in a single pack. The price analysis of all the components (case, sleeves, medication, mechanism, etc.) shows that the cost of manufacturing comes down to, wait for it, $8.02 for the package. Click on the image for a link to the article. Manufacture for 8 bucks; sell for $608. Something's not right here. Plus, the same package used to be around $60 few years back. I actually remember buying a pair for about $65 or so in 2009 (before a trip to an area where there were a lot of scorpions). The price of this medication/applicator should have decreased instead of shooting up like this. Here is chart that may explain this pricing behavior: This one is from Forbes and it shows the prices of Epi-Pen and its competition Auvi-Q. |
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(from Forbes)
Two competing companies increasing the price of the same medication almost synchronously during multiple years. (For more details, see here). Huh?!
Of course, insurance holders were completely unaware of this price hike; our co-pays hide this fact from us.
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