Dear Jennifer,
Your actions have revealed a troubling truth: you’ve prioritized profit over people.
The exorbitant price of Mylan’s EpiPen, now set at $600, along with the recently announced $300 generic option, places a critical medication beyond the financial reach of countless American families who are simply trying to provide for their loved ones. This life-saving device, which costs just a few dollars to produce, has seen its price soar by an astonishing $500 in under ten years. Your recent claim that a generic version will be offered at “half” the cost is misleading to those of us who know the reality. The same product that was available for $100 in 2007 will now be sold at a 300% markup.
Did you really believe we would express gratitude for this? Or did you assume we wouldn’t recognize the manipulation at play?
The fact that you’re reducing the price—yet it’s still triple what it was a decade ago—highlights the relentless greed that has driven your decisions. Families dealing with allergies can’t simply save up as if purchasing a luxury item. We require this essential medication, which expires annually, forcing us to confront new financial challenges each year. In our household, we need three packs, and we don’t even have a child in daycare or school yet. Many families I know require five or six packs just to ensure their children’s safety.
The few who can afford your inflated prices do so only because they have no choice. If we don’t make these sacrifices, our loved ones’ lives hang in the balance. You are acutely aware of the lack of competition in the market, which allows you to inflate prices and capitalize on our desperation.
You argue that lowering EpiPen prices would create hardship for Mylan, yet your salary has skyrocketed by over 670% since you took over the product nine years ago. With an annual income of $19 million, it appears that no amount of wealth is sufficient to satisfy your ambitions.
You profit immensely while families like mine struggle to afford these essential medications, hoping we can secure another year of life-saving treatment for our children. Your unwillingness to lower the price of EpiPens makes it abundantly clear that Mylan’s profits and your personal wealth take precedence over the health of my daughter and the millions of Americans who depend on these devices.
Consider this, Jennifer: each exquisite meal you enjoy at a fine dining establishment is funded by families who are sacrificing to ensure their child has an EpiPen. Each luxury car, SUV, and boat you acquire represents money that could have been used to secure medication for families struggling to make ends meet. Every vacation home you buy is financed by families who have gone without basic necessities to afford EpiPens for their children with severe allergies.
Many families are forced to choose between these life-saving devices and essential expenses. You can publicly discuss your awareness of EpiPen accessibility issues, but you cannot disguise the impact your pricing strategies have had on families for nearly a decade. You can offer discounts and new products that remain unaffordable, but these are merely attempts to mask the consequences of your actions.
Philanthropy does not equate to compassion, Jennifer. Sponsoring a few organizations does not make you a member of our community; it simply reflects a fraction of the riches you have extracted from struggling families. Your so-called support is hollow because it comes from the very funds that families like mine have been forced to divert from other critical needs.
You will never grasp the depth of empathy found within the allergy community. While some have expressed a desire for you to experience the challenges of severe allergies, those of us in this community would never wish such suffering on anyone. We have witnessed the horrors of anaphylaxis firsthand.
We’ve seen the hives spreading across our loved ones’ bodies, held them through the agony of vomiting and breathing difficulties, and felt the terror as their blood pressure plummets. We’ve watched in distress as our children turned blue, clutching our overpriced EpiPens and praying that we’ve acted swiftly enough to save them.
EpiPens are not luxuries for us; they are a matter of life or death.
If you were to experience an anaphylactic reaction and one of us were nearby, not a single person in our community would hesitate to use our costly EpiPens to save your life. This is the integrity of the community you’ve exploited for years.
I take pride in knowing that my daughters will grow up within this community, surrounded by compassionate individuals who value human life. You’ve inadvertently provided them an example of how not to conduct themselves in the world. They will learn to be empathetic, strong-minded women who prioritize others’ lives over personal gain. They will become role models their own children can admire.
In essence, they will embody everything you are not, Jennifer.
Summary
This open letter to Mylan’s CEO critiques the exorbitant pricing of EpiPens, highlighting the greed that prioritizes profit over the lives of those who rely on this essential medication. The author urges the CEO to recognize the struggles of families in need and emphasizes that true compassion cannot be bought.