Mylan’s ‘murky math’ fuels EpiPen PR crisis

Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who heard Mylan CEO Heather Bresch’s testimony last week about the company’s controversial EpiPen pricing now want revised information.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday broke the story that the profit and tax figures Bresch shared with the committee lacked “clarity”:

Bresch said Mylan’s profit was $100 for a two-pack of the injectors, despite a $608 list price.

But in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal, Mylan said Monday that the profit figure presented by Bresch included taxes, which the company didn’t clearly convey to Congress. The company substantially reduced its calculation of EpiPen profits by applying the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate of 37.5 percent—five times Mylan’s overall tax rate last year.

Without the tax-related reduction, Mylan’s profits on the EpiPen two-pack were about 60 percent higher than the figure given to Congress, or $166, it said in a new regulatory filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission [on] Monday. The company said it expects to sell about 4 million EpiPen two-packs in the U.S. this year.