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U.S. taxpayers may have overpaid for EpiPen by as much as $1.27 billion from 2006 through 2016, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday, citing an estimate from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. Grassley said that’s far more than the $465 million that EpiPen maker Mylan Pharmaceuticals agreed to in settlement negotiations with the Justice Department. Grassley’s Judiciary Committee has been investigating Mylan’s EpiPen pricing since last year.

Grassley said he learned of the large disparity between Mylan’s settlement amount and the potential overpayment by taxpayers from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General after asking officials for an accounting of EpiPen overcharges. He has posted a copy of the Report of the Inspector General.

Last October the embattled pharmaceutical company said that it had agreed to settle a case with the Department of Justice for $465 million after it was accused of over-billing the government for its EpiPen product.

Mylan for years classified EpiPen as a generic drug for the purposes of Medicaid’s drug rebate program, and as a result paid a lower rebate rate to Medicaid than did sellers of brand-name drugs. Officials have said that EpiPen, which is used to counteract a potentially fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis, should have been treated as a brand-name product for Medicaid’s rebate program.

Last year the drug company also came under heavy criticism for jacking up the price of the life-saving auto-injector. It raised the price of a two-pack to $608. By comparison, two EpiPens in 2007 cost $94.

Mylan was sued in April by customers who claimed the company engaged in an illegal scheme to dramatically increase the price of EpiPen over the past decade. The suit alleged that the “skyrocketing” list price of EpiPen was the result of Mylan’s payments of rebates to pharmacy benefit managers – including CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx – which handle prescription drug benefit programs for insurance plans.

The class action suit claims violations of consumer protection laws of all U.S. states, as well as a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. If granted class-action status, the suit would cover all consumers.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, noted that when EpiPen prices were increasing most dramatically, some other companies tried to introduce competing devices. But those companies never succeeded in displacing the market dominance of EpiPen because they did not pay the same level of rebates that Mylan was paying the pharmacy benefit managers, the suit said.

“Mylan has tried every trick in the book to avoid taking accountability to the millions of people who are living without the EpiPen they need to prevent a life-threatening allergic reaction,” said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, which represents the three named plaintiffs in the suit.

Mylan did not comment on the suit when it was filed. With respect to the comments by Grassley, a spokeswoman for Mylan said, ”We have no comment beyond that we continue to work with the government to finalize the settlement as soon as possible.”