Dear Samantha,
It seems you’ve let greed get the best of you.
The EpiPen, priced at an astonishing $600, alongside your proposed $300 generic version, is a life-saving medication that many hardworking families in America simply cannot afford. The production cost of the EpiPen is only a few dollars, yet you’ve inflated its price by $500 in under ten years. Your recent announcement about a generic option at “half” the cost only reveals the extent of your pricing strategy. Allergy families know that this so-called generic will still be marked up by 300% compared to what it was in 2007 when it sold for $100.
Did you think we would be grateful for this? Or perhaps you believed we wouldn’t notice?
The fact that you’re cutting the price in half, and it’s still three times more expensive than it was less than a decade ago, highlights the relentless nature of your greed.
Families dealing with allergies can’t simply save and budget as if purchasing a car. We require this essential medication regularly, and it has a yearly expiration date. The financial burden of replacing EpiPens is a constant struggle. For our family, we need three packs, and our daughter isn’t even in daycare or school yet. I know other families in similar situations who need five or six packs.
Those who can afford your exorbitant prices do so out of necessity. If we don’t make sacrifices to buy this product, our loved ones could face dire consequences.
You are aware that there is no comparable competitor on the market, and thus you continue to raise prices, knowing that we will pay. You claim that lowering the EpiPen price would hurt Mylan, yet your salary has increased over 670% since you took over the product nine years ago. With an annual income of $19 million, it seems your thirst for wealth is insatiable.
You accumulate millions for yourself, while we struggle to afford a year’s worth of life-saving medicine; maybe just enough to get through the next allergic reaction.
Your unwillingness to reduce the EpiPen price makes it clear that you prioritize Mylan’s profits and your personal gain above the lives of my daughter and the countless American families who need multiple EpiPens to protect their loved ones.
Consider this, Samantha:
- Every lavish meal you enjoy at a high-end restaurant is funded by the families who go without food just to afford an EpiPen for their child.
- Every luxury vehicle and boat you buy is money that could have gone to help families pay for car loans—loans that were sacrificed to secure EpiPens for children with allergies.
- Each vacation home you purchase is funded by families who forgo mortgage payments to afford EpiPen packs for their children with food allergies.
There are thousands of families who either go without EpiPens or rely on expired ones because they can’t afford this vital medication.
You can go on television and feign concern about EpiPen accessibility issues. You may pretend to be unaware of the consequences your pricing strategies have had on allergy families over the years. You can hand out coupons, introduce unaffordable products, and make excuses, all while claiming to empathize with allergy sufferers.
However, there is one thing you can’t achieve. You can’t buy your way into our community by simply sponsoring a couple of our organizations. The donations you provide are not genuine acts of support; they are merely a fraction of the profits you’ve extracted from hardworking families.
Your philanthropy does not signify compassion, Samantha; it highlights hypocrisy. You will never truly be part of our community because you don’t care about my daughter’s life or the lives of millions like her. Trust is something you have lost with us.
You’ll never grasp the resilience and compassion of the allergy community. Many have expressed a wish for you or your children to experience a life-threatening allergy. While it’s been said, I know no parent of an allergic child would wish such a fate on anyone, including you.
We’ve witnessed the terrifying moments of anaphylaxis with our loved ones. We’ve seen them break out in hives, struggle to breathe, and fight for their lives.
We’ve held them during their panic, watched their blood pressure plummet, and rushed to administer EpiPens in desperate moments, praying that we acted swiftly enough.
This life is not one we chose. For us, EpiPens are not a luxury; they are the line between life and death.
I know one more thing about this community: if you were having an anaphylactic reaction and anyone from our community was nearby, we would not hesitate to use our costly EpiPens to save you, the very person who has made this medication inaccessible for so many.
This illustrates the character of the community you have exploited for years, Samantha.
I take pride in knowing that my daughters will belong to this compassionate community. They will learn empathy, strength, and the importance of looking out for others. They will never prioritize personal gain over the lives of others. They will be role models their own children can admire.
In short, they will be everything you are not, Samantha.