Suits against Mylan moving forward

Pricing of EpiPens prompts backlash

Cincinnati — The maker of the EpiPen that came under fire for boosting the price of the lifesaving allergy medication sky high may have quieted the controversy by introducing a generic version, but now faces a raft of lawsuits.

Several proposed class-action cases against drug-maker Mylan involving EpiPens have been brought in federal courts around the country, including two in Kansas and two in northern California.

One was filed by a Cincinnati attorney against Mylan after it raised the price of its EpiPen injectors by 500% since 2009.

Since the lawsuit was filed Sept. 6, the case has been transferred to federal court, and there are now about 100 people who have signed on to the proposed class-action case.

The attorney who filed the lawsuit, Carl Lewis, said more people are seeking to join. He is waiting for the judge to formally certify it as a class-action.

“We are waiting for the court’s certification of the case as a class,” Lewis said in an email.

At the time, only one other lawsuit surrounding EpiPens, filed in federal court in Michigan, had been publicized.

Mylan itself has faced intense scrutiny, with CEO Heather Bresch being called to testify in September before a U.S. House committee. During that testimony, Bresch defended the pricing of EpiPens.

She also announced that the company would offer a “generic version” of its own product that would cost $300, about half of the wholesale price.

A month later, in October, Mylan announced that it had agreed to terms of a $465 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and other government agencies. The settlement was intended to resolve claims that Mylan wrongly classified EpiPen devices as generic drugs under Medicaid.

The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled its own hearing last month but canceled it when officials said representatives from the Justice Department, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Mylan all refused to attend.

Last year, Mylan said its EpiPen was “the number-one dispensed epinephrine auto-injector.” Globally, EpiPens accounted for $1 billion in annual net sales in 2015.

A spokeswoman for Mylan declined to comment about the EpiPen lawsuits.