Mylan Pharmaceuticals News: EpiPen Price Debate Hurts Sales
Last year, Mylan Pharmaceuticals sparked outrage in the U.S. when the company applied a drastic price hike on EpiPen injectors, which are used for allergic reaction treatment, to $700. The price of the life-saving tool has reportedly seen an increase of 500 percent in 10 years, but now, it looks like this has backfired on the company.
This week, the pharmaceutical company released a report on their earnings for the second quarter of the year, and things do not look great.
As reported by Business Insider, the EpiPen Auto-Injector sales have fallen by $172 million, and Mylan's overall revenue totaled only to $2.96 billion, which did not meet financial services company Wells Fargo's $3.08 billion expectation. Their North America revenues even organically fell to nine percent.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
According to the company report, they have decreased their 2018 earnings per share target from $6 to $5.40, and will also be delaying U.S. product launches planned for this year and the next.
The decline in sales for the EpiPen Auto-Injector stemmed from the company's decision to sell a lower-priced generic version. This followed the price increase outrage that also led to Congressional questioning.
"Given the region's ongoing challenges and the uncertain U.S. regulatory environment, we have elected to defer all major U.S. launches from our full year 2017 financial guidance to 2018, including generic Advair and generic Copaxone," CEO Heather Bresch reportedly said. "As a result, we now expect to deliver total revenues this year of between $11.5 billion and $12.5 billion," Bresch added.
According to MarketWatch, Mylan still maintains a 70 percent share of the market, including the original EpiPen Auto-Injector and its generic version. However, it is clear the EpiPen, which made up about 40 percent of the company's profit in 2015, is going to make up less of their profit in the future.
As for the rest of their products, Mylan reportedly expects their sales to increase in North America for the rest of the year.
