Pricing the Epipen

1. The price of Epipen has increased three times in five years to around $600. Epipen is a lifesaving diagnosis that people always need for life threatening situation. Heather should heavily discount and subsidize the medicine to make it available to all the people at affordable price. There was absolutely no justification for the increase in prices. The price had been set that the people had to pay the price even out of their pockets despite having it covered through their healthcare plans. The patients or the potential users had to potentially pay twice the amount that they would pay otherwise, hence, this situation is should be completely avoided by Heather and his organization. Hence, it would appropriate for Heather to provide a manufacturer based coupon for retail purchase and should increase its rebates. One of the risks that Heather faces is losing customers due to negative reaction among the public and thus, going out of business. The biggest risk is that customers would not be able to afford the Epipen even with their health insurance plans.

2. The existing price differentials across various countries does not seem reasonable because the pricing should match the nature of healthcare that exists in various countries which varies from country to country without any specific trend. Some countries may have a better healthcare system while other countries may have a poor health system. There are healthcare systems in various countries that allows the citizens to obtain their medical requirement prescriptions at a very low cost. The pricing should be decided in such a way that it is both consistent and affordable everywhere. The appropriate variation in prices can be adjusted in terms of the sales tax etc. that vary from country to country. This way the base price can be maintained the same without any variation amongst various countries and the variation can be accounted for if there are certain additional country specific expenditures.

3. The pricing that should be recommended needs to be devised by considering all the factors that go into the expense of a patient if he does not use the Epipen. The strategy that can be used is the value based pricing. As mentioned in the case that a trip to the emergency room would cost a patient $20,000 if he does not take the preventive medication of Epipen. Hence, in all the various countries the total expenditure that would be associated in the treatment of a patient who does not take the Epipen