MYL Mylan NV

WASHINGTON—Lawmakers have summoned the top executive from EpiPen maker Mylan NV to Washington for a hearing next week to explain substantial price increases for the emergency allergy treatment that have generated widespread consumer outrage.

The company confirmed Wednesday that Chief Executive Heather Bresch will come to Capitol Hill Sept. 21 to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a hearing likely to feature intense questioning about Mylan's pricing strategy.

Politicians from both parties have been racing to find ways to lower health-care costs in light of the EpiPen controversy. Some say the issue combines the ingredients needed to bridge the partisan divide on health care: price spikes in a lifesaving treatment used by children coupled with growth in high-deductible plans that have increased consumers' exposure to treatment's price tags.

Mylan already has said, amid the criticism, that it will launch a half-priced generic version of the medicine and increase rebates available to some consumers.

But many members of Congress see potential action by the government as necessary. Some have asked the Food and Drug Administration why rivals of the emergency allergy product can't quickly get approved and provide competition to drive down its cost.

A few legislators have said the agency has to go further and regulate the price of lifesaving drugs.

The FDA has declined to comment.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.) and John McCain (R., Ariz.), plan to introduce a bill requiring drugmakers to give a 30-day notice and justification to the Department of Health and Human Services of any prescription drug price increase of more than 10%.

The hearing announcement Wednesday came from both the committee's chairman, Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah.) and its top Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, in a sign of bipartisan interest in the issue.

Another twist to Mylan's visit to Capitol Hill is that Ms. Bresch is the daughter of a Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the company had the second-highest executive compensation among all U.S. drug and biotech firms during the past five years.

Lawmakers say they think their various proposals to reduce health-care costs—some of which were born of earlier drug-pricing outcries— have had a big boost from their EpiPen-mobilized constituents.

"We really do have the opportunity to have these patients be advocates in bringing public pressure to bring down health-care costs," said Rep. Ami Bera, a California Democrat, who has called on the FDA to regulate the prices of lifesaving drugs. "You are seeing how quickly electeds on both sides of the aisle are rallying around the EpiPen issue."

The spread of high-deductible health insurance in employer-sponsored plans and the ones that people buy alone has increased consumers' engagement because they have to pay many costs upfront and out-of-pocket before their coverage kicks in, health-care economists say.

About 40% of people under the age of 65 are in a high-deductible health plan, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last week. That is up from 25.3% in 2010.

Exposure to costs can prompt consumers to cut back in spending on discretionary items. But when confronted with a must-have drug, especially one used by children, it appears to have had a different effect: turning some into activists to attack health-care costs.

"When you're paying $20 as a copay nobody looks at what the thing costs," said James Baker, head of Food Allergy Research & Education, a patient advocacy group. "This is the first thing that really has hit people. The fact is that it's a kind of life-or-death thing."

Some experts, though, said it was too soon to call the EpiPen controversy a turning point in consumer-driven activism.

Tom Miller, a resident fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said that while individuals having "skin in the game" could change their behavior in relation to health-care costs, that theory didn't apply to the tens of millions of Americans over the age of 65 in Medicare, or younger enrollees in low-deductible private plans and Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor.

Peter Loftus and Jonathan D. Rockoff contributed to this article.

Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 14, 2016 23:05 ET (03:05 GMT)

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