Speaker 1: Now on Bloomberg Radio, we take stock of healthcare. The
Speaker 1: issue of drug pricing has been at the forefront, certainly
Speaker 1: in the political realm for the last few months. We're
Speaker 1: living in a very special time in the history of
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical industry. Let me three percent of all biotechs
Speaker 1: that start actually get a drug approved. It's a very
Speaker 1: hard thing to do. Bloomberg taking sto healthcare and focus
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Well, the spotlight is certainly shining hard
Speaker 1: on Land today under fire for pricing it's EpiPen emergency
Speaker 1: allergy shots at six hundred dollars, introducing it's as a
Speaker 1: generic version that will have the price. This is the
Speaker 1: second move in less than a week to respond to
Speaker 1: very intense criticism after its offer of assistance programs to
Speaker 1: help patients cover out of pocket expenses was blasted as
Speaker 1: a mere press relations fixed by several US lawmakers. Joining
Speaker 1: us now for what is going on and what is
Speaker 1: going to happen next for the epipan and certainly for
Speaker 1: mylon as Liz Crudeholo, she's especially pharma and biotech analy
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg Intelligence, joining me here and in New York Studios.
Speaker 1: Lea's welcome back. So for somebody who hasn't been following
Speaker 1: this story, it is. It's just a delicious one. It
Speaker 1: could be an episode on you know, some great Netflix series. Right,
Speaker 1: A big drug company lobbies Congress. The head of the company,
Speaker 1: by the way, the daughter a very powerful congressman. Now, uh,
Speaker 1: and they get it. The schools have to carry these
Speaker 1: EpiPens and the government's gonna help them pay for and
Speaker 1: then she boots the price up. It's sort of a
Speaker 1: genius marketing experiment. So essentially what they've done is they've
Speaker 1: created this idea that if your child has a now
Speaker 1: or do you want EpiPen on you at all times?
Speaker 1: So not only is the parent going to carry the EpiPen,
Speaker 1: but now you also want one in the school, so
Speaker 1: you buy it in this tupac and most schools you
Speaker 1: have to keep the two pack together so that the
Speaker 1: package is labeled, so most patients essentially are going to
Speaker 1: be buying two of these right to two packs. So
Speaker 1: it's a genius marketing experiment in that sense that you've
Speaker 1: got this fear if you don't want to be anywhere
Speaker 1: without your EpiPen. On top of that, they then raised
Speaker 1: the price and a few things allowed them to do that.
Speaker 1: So one is that we have a generic that was
Speaker 1: filed with FDA from Teva. It wasn't approved, that will
Speaker 1: be delayed until seventeen. So now we've got no generic competition.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows EpiPen by name, right, there's this branding quality
Speaker 1: that's the almost think someone like the Google becomes a
Speaker 1: term eppen, what describes this kind of device? You see
Speaker 1: it in TV. People run get an EpiPen, right, It's
Speaker 1: not an EEFN shops epi friend. And so the other
Speaker 1: thing is that they had a somewhat competitor and Snofi's Ovocue,
Speaker 1: and that was recalled last year. So they've had this
Speaker 1: perfect storm where they were able to increase the price,
Speaker 1: which drew all of this scrutiny. At the same time,
Speaker 1: I feel like the story really draws attention to the
Speaker 1: fact that drug companies do not get every single dollar
Speaker 1: of that price increase. So if you look at the
Speaker 1: EpiPen example, there is this middleman situation. So while the
Speaker 1: list price was six eight dollars for to prescription, Mylon
Speaker 1: really only saw two and seventy four dollars of that.
Speaker 1: The rest went to the middleman. So that that really
Speaker 1: brings to light the true situation with our health care
Speaker 1: system and who should be dealing with that is the
Speaker 1: federal government not doing anything about I mean, but I
Speaker 1: guess if I'm a middle man, if I'm a woman
Speaker 1: along that sheen of suppliers, I'm saying, not going to
Speaker 1: make money too, So hey, you grow up, reality, And
Speaker 1: that's the exact situation here. Everybody's saying, well, am I
Speaker 1: supposed to make money off of this? And so the
Speaker 1: decision today was even more genius in terms of or
Speaker 1: you know, a pr situation where they said, look, we
Speaker 1: understand that people are saying, why not lower the price?
Speaker 1: And the decision last week on coupons really only applied
Speaker 1: to people with commercial insurance, so Medicare and Medicaid could
Speaker 1: not benefit from that. So there was a government aspect
Speaker 1: as well. By introducing a generic today, they're really cutting
Speaker 1: out that middleman. And so at the end of the
Speaker 1: day on the Myelon impact really nothing. So the stock
Speaker 1: price is up a little bit today when you look
Speaker 1: at the fun the mentals for Mylon now and this
Speaker 1: is this is obviously a very big story, but how
Speaker 1: are they positioned now to put this behind them and
Speaker 1: move ahead. And if they do, then what are investors
Speaker 1: looking at or what should they be looking at? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it was an extremely smart decision just come
Speaker 1: out and address it. So we've seen several companies in
Speaker 1: the past year we've faced similar congressional probes and pushback,
Speaker 1: and they've really tried to say, look, you know, we
Speaker 1: invest in our Indeed, drug making is an expensive practice,
Speaker 1: and they haven't really just come out and addressed it.
Speaker 1: So I think that addressing a head on was a
Speaker 1: very smart decision from an image perspective and just limiting
Speaker 1: any overhang on the stock. And then secondly is that
Speaker 1: they've been moving away from EpiPen. So Epypen right now
Speaker 1: is about ten percent of revenue. They've been expecting that
Speaker 1: a generic was coming from Teva, and this new generic
Speaker 1: essentially blocks generic competition and allows them to focus on
Speaker 1: their core strength, which is really their generic division. And
Speaker 1: what are the what should be watching there? What's next?
Speaker 1: Or what what is what do we think what step
Speaker 1: could they take? They would say, Okay, time to buy
Speaker 1: some more this stock. So the biggest thing to be
Speaker 1: looking for when they report next quarter will be the
Speaker 1: integration of their newly acquired Meta division and how well
Speaker 1: they've been able to integrate, and how much that's been
Speaker 1: thwarting the whole drug pricing pressure on the generic side.
Speaker 1: Let's cuarto holo, thank you so very much. Fascinating, what
Speaker 1: a fun start to cover, always fun, fascinating, Big farm
Speaker 1: and more from our own Liz Cardajlo. She is with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence right here in New York City, specialty farm
Speaker 1: and biotech analyst. She is. Thanks so much to Liz
Speaker 1: well some news. Ha. We say rest in peace now
Speaker 1: to Gene Wilders, star Willy Wonka so many mel Brooks comedies.
Speaker 1: He's dead at the age of eighty three, according to
Speaker 1: his family, and of course we send them all our
Speaker 1: sympathies and just terrific memories. At last of Gene Wilder.
Speaker 1: This is taking Stock on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Kathleen Hayes.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Yeah,