ACT UP Smashes EpiPen Pinata Outside Pharma Company

ACT UP/NYC took their activism to the streets this week, when members smashed an EpiPen pinata outside the offices of Mylan Pharmaceuticals to protest the company's price hikes on their drugs, including a 1,100 percent increase for the EpiPen, which stops allergic reactions.

The pinata was filled with gold coins -- a nod to the cost of an EpiPen jumping from $50 in 2004 to $600 in 2016, and Mylan CEO Heather Bresch's recent raise, which upped her salary from $2.5 million to $19 million. ACT UP protesters chanted, "Heather Bresch, whaddya say? How many kids have you killed today?"

ACT UP -- joined by members of Voices of Community Activists and Leaders and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines -- also took aim at price hikes for Gilead's hepatitis C drug Sovaldi, which is now $1,000 a pill; Naloxone, a medication used for opioid overdoses that costs 17 times more than it did in 2014; and Insulin, which jumped 200 percent in price between 2002 and 2013.

"Since American taxpayers fund much of the research that goes into creating these medications, we can't then hand it off to pharmaceutical companies to charge exorbitant prices that we can't afford or that bankrupt us," ACT UP member Mark Milano said. "High drug prices reduce accessibility and risk people's lives."

See more images of the protest below.

[RELATED: How Gays Against Guns Is Influenced by ACT UP]