TRENTON, N.J. — EpiPen maker Mylan has finalized a $465 million government agreement settling allegations it overbilled Medicaid for its emergency allergy injectors for a decade – charges brought after rival Sanofi filed a whistleblower lawsuit and tipped off the government.
It’s the second settlement with the Department of Justice that Mylan has made since 2009 for allegedly overcharging the government for its medicines.
A prominent senator and a watchdog group both criticized the latest settlement for being far smaller than the amount Medicaid was overcharged.
Mylan NV, technically based in England but with operational headquarters near Pittsburgh, became a poster child for pharmaceutical industry greed for hiking the list price of EpiPens repeatedly. It raised the price per pair from $94 in 2007 to $608 last year, while experts estimate it costs less than $10 to produce one EpiPen.
Last September, a House panel grilled Mylan CEO Heather Bresch about the skyrocketing cost of the devices, which patients inject in the thigh to stop a runaway allergic reaction to foods such as nuts and eggs or insect bites and stings.
“DOJ is letting Mylan get off on the cheap for ripping off the government, and with no admission of wrongdoing,” Robert Weissman, president of the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, said Thursday.
Weissman and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, both noted that the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Inspector General’s investigated and concluded that Medicaid programs paid Mylan $1.27 billion more than they should have between 2006 and 2016.
On Thursday, the DOJ disclosed its EpiPen case began with a lawsuit against Mylan under the False Claims Act.
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