Years after Mylan’s epic EpiPen price hikes, it finally gets a generic rival

Enlarge / EpiPen two-pack. (credit: Getty | Joe Raedle)

Mylan's life-saving epinephrine auto-injector EpiPen now has a generic rival, the Food and Drug Administration triumphantly announced.

Teva Pharmaceuticals USA now has FDA approval to market a direct generic competitor of the device, as well as a version for pediatric patients, a generic EpiPen Jr. Both products are used in emergency situations to auto-inject a dose of epinephrine into a person's thigh to thwart deadly allergic reactions, namely anaphylactic shock.

The approval comes years after Mylan outraged patients and lawmakers by ruthlessly hiking the price of its product by more than 400 percent. Mylan purchased the rights to EpiPen in 2007 and gradually raised the list price from about $50 per auto-injector to slightly over $600 for a two-pack. The move boosted EpiPen profits to $1.1 billion a year. In step, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch saw her salary soar by millions, reaching nearly $19 million in 2015-a point lawmakers hammered her for during a House Oversight Committee hearing in September of 2016.

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