Taxpayers Now Fund Most of EpiPen Revenue, Senator Says

by Ben Popken
Oct. 7, 2016

You may not need an EpiPen, but you're still paying for it. In fact, you're their biggest customer.

"The majority of Mylan's EpiPen revenue growth came from Medicare and Medicaid," Senator Chuck Grassley told NBC News in a statement after the Iowa Republican's office published an analysis of newly released data on rebates paid by the drugmaker to the government.

The two programs, which help cover healthcare costs for the poor and elderly, are funded by taxpayer dollars.

From 2011 to 2015, government spending rose from being 23 percent of Mylan's EpiPen revenue to 53 percent, according to Grassley's analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) figures disclosed this week.

At the same time, the price the government paid for the emergency allergic reaction treatment rose by 463 percent.

In the aftermath of the general furor over hiking up the price of EpiPens from $100 to $600, Mylan has also drawn intense scrutiny from how a misclassification of the EpiPen as a "generic" instead of a "branded drug" could have caused it to underpay Medicaid and Medicare.

•••••