[JURIST] Two members of the US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] sent a letter [text, PDF] to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [official website] Monday asking them to review Mylan NV [corporate website], the manufacturer of the EpiPen allergy shot. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official websites] raised concerns about Mylan NV’s potential violation of antitrust laws. The two senators claim that Mylan NV may have engaged in exclusionary conduct and exclusive contracting when they entered into contracts with schools that barred the schools from purchasing EpiPen from any of their competitors. Such practices, they argue, have a detrimental impact on competition in the industry and patient’s access to the drug.

Since Mylan acquired EpiPen in 2007, the price [WSJ report] of the drug has increased more than six-fold. In September the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a part of the US Department of Health and Human Services [official websites], advised [Reuters report] Mylan NV that they misclassified EpiPen as a generic treatment rather than a branded drug. This allowed Mylan NV to provide state Medicaid programs with a 13 percent rebate as opposed to the 23.1 percent minimum for branded drugs. Due to this misclassification, Mylan NV might owe [Bloomberg reports] as much as $607 million in additional rebates. In October Mylan NV announced [Reuters report] a $465 million settlement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] over the drug’s misclassification. There have been no reports that this settlement has been finalized. Grassley plans [press release] to hold a hearing on November 30 to examine the merits of the settlement offer.