EpiPen maker to pay $465M to settle overcharging case

The maker of EpiPens on Friday announced that it has reached a $465 million settlement with the Department of Justice over claims that the company overcharged the Medicaid program for years. 

{mosads}The company, Mylan, said the settlement would resolve claims by the Obama administration that the company had been overcharging Medicaid by classifying its product as a generic instead of a brand drug, and therefore paying significantly lower rebates to the government. 

The administration had confirmed its claims in a letter to Democratic lawmakers this week, prompting a new round of outrage over Mylan’s pricing practices for the EpiPen. 

The company said the terms of the settlement “do not provide for any finding of wrongdoing on the part of Mylan Inc.”

“This agreement is another important step in Mylan’s efforts to move forward and bring resolution to all EpiPen Auto-Injector related matters,” Mylan CEO Heather Bresch said in a statement. 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a leading critic of Mylan’s pricing, praised the settlement, and called for looking at the issue on other drugs. 

“I am glad the Department of Justice pursued this so quickly, since the misclassification was an outrage,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “At the same time, this must be the tip of the iceberg. If other drugs are misclassified, and surely EpiPen isn’t the only one, the public deserves to know it, the taxpayers need to get their money back, and the process needs to be changed to stop this from happening again.”

The claim that Mylan overcharged taxpayers had provoked an uproar from lawmakers. 

“Today’s letter is more evidence that while Mylan irresponsibly raised the price of EpiPen, they were also bilking taxpayers out of millions of dollars,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Frank  Pallone (D-N.J.) said in a statement on Wednesday after receiving a letter from the administration saying that Mylan had overcharged the Medicaid program. 

“Essential medicines like EpiPen are increasingly out of reach for families across the nation due to unjustified price hikes, and it’s high time for drug companies to take responsibility for their actions,” they added.