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Klobuchar among senators seeking investigation of EpiPen classification

WASHINGTON – Three members of the U.S. Senate, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to explain how Mylan pharmaceutical’s high-priced brand name EpiPen became classified as a “non-innovator” generic drug for purposes of Medicaid payments.

In a letter sent Wednesday to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) pointed out that Mylan and another company, UDL, paid $118 million in October 2009 to settle U.S. Justice Department charges that they “sold innovator drugs that were manufactured by other companies and had classified those drugs as non-innovator drugs for Medicaid rebate purposes.”

EpiPen was not among those drugs. But Klobuchar said last week that Mylan’s misclassification of EpiPens will cost Minnesota’s Medicaid program an estimated $4.3 million in overpayments in 2016 because the product’s “non-innovator” status significantly reduces rebates the company is required to pay to Medicaid administrators.

http://www.startribune.com/klobuchar-among-senators-seek-investigation-of-epipen-classification/392641431/

 

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