:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50609231/666.0.jpg)
Political satire house GOP Arcade has launched a new game poking fun at the rich and powerful. EpiPen Tycoon mocks pharmaceutical company Mylan and its CEO Heather Bresch for setting high prices for its drugs.
In the free browser game, players set the price for EpiPen, a syringe filled with a drug that can halt a life-threatening allergic reaction. If the price is too high, the public will react badly. If the price is too low, company shareholders become jittery. Either way, Bresch loses her job.
Must Read
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7031189/111.0.jpg)
The upshot is that the player keeps hiking the price of the drug, even though it costs lives. Joke boosts appear from time-to-time, to alleviate the pressure.
Mylan hit the news a few weeks ago for steep price increases on EpiPen, which was listed at $124 in 2009. Last month, it was selling in the U.S. at $614. The story follows public outrage at Turing Pharmaceuticals former CEO Martin Shkreli’s 5,000 percent price hikes for parasitic infection drug Daraprim. He was later arrested on charges of securities fraud.
GOP Arcade creates newsy and funny mini-games that savage everything from the presidential campaign to America’s foreign policies.
"It seems like stories about companies jacking up the prices of drugs are going to become more and more common," said GOP Arcade’s Brian Moore in an email to Polygon. "We thought there was a hilarious premise in playing a game from the perspective of a pharma CEO, who has to weigh the impossible choice between upsetting Wall Street or enraging the masses. In this case you play as Heather Bresch, the latest exec on the block to go full Shkreli."
