US: Mylan faces federal antitrust investigation in EpiPen practices

Federal antitrust regulators are eyeing big drugmaker Mylan’s EpiPen business, the company said Monday.

Mylan, in a statement, said the Federal Trade Commission asked it “months ago” for information about its anti-allergy EpiPen “as part of a preliminary investigation.”

The disclosure comes nearly five months after two United States senators asked the FTC to investigate whether Mylan violated antitrust laws to protect the auto-injector EpiPen from competition.

Those lawmakers’ interest in EpiPen in turn was sparked by consumer outrage over Mylan having raised the price of the device more than 500 percent in recent years, to more than $600 per two-pack.

“Mylan received an information request from the FTC months ago as part of a preliminary investigation,” said Mylan spokeswoman Nina Devlin on Monday.

“Any suggestion that Mylan took any inappropriate or unlawful actions to prevent generic competition is without merit,” Devlin said.

“We note that the epinephrine auto-injector market is and always has been competitive, with multiple products competing on the market since we acquired EpiPen Auto-Injector.”

“Further, Teva has had patent licenses to launch their proposed generic alternative to EpiPen Auto-Injector since June 2015, pending FDA approval, years prior to patent expiry,” Devlin said.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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