Mylan CEO Heather Bresch has been on a detrimental rampage that further backs the notion that health and pharmaceutical companies thrive by the means of nefarious and unethical practices. Before diving into Ms. Bresch's current blunders and mistakes, let's take a look at the history and making of this individual who has been ranked by Fortune.com as the 22nd most powerful female in the world.
Ms. Bresch's deceit can be traced back to the origins of her alleged professional career. Ostensibly, she "earned" an MBA and an undergraduate degree in international studies and political science. Now, if your definition of earned is to procure something through extortion, persuasion and nepotism, then yes, she earned her degree. She earned it by using the powerful circle of her father, Senator Joe Manchin D-West Virginia. By contacting high-ranking officials and faculty at West Virginia University, the members were able to produce her degree from thin air despite Ms. Bresch only having completing about half the required courses for her to earn such a consummate degree. What's more, when questions arose as to the validity of her degree, WVU still backed Ms. Bresch. Despite the school knowing full well that her degree was in fact erroneous, WVU spent a hefty sum to launch a special panel to try and prove that her information was not falsified. Strike one for Heather Bresch.
After skating by one unlawful arrangement, she decided that she wanted to leave her job as an aerobics teacher in 1992 and move to West Virginia in search of something in the political realm–despite having little to no experience with those matters. However, her true motive was to use her father as a means of catapulting her socioeconomic status through name dropping, rather than hard work. Fortune Magazine's Jen Wieczner describes how she landed a position at a prestigious pharm company: "Her well-connected father ran into his friend Milan Puskar at a basketball game and finagled her an interview at Puskar’s drug company. Dropping by Mylan’s executive offices, then located in a double-wide trailer in Morgantown, Bresch walked out with a job typing labels in the factory basement." Granted, this isn't too cunning of a ploy being that she did start at the bottom. However, when you look at how incredibly fast her upward mobility took place, the reg flags are robust. As her father began to climb the ranks and land a position as Secretary of State, Ms. Bresch began to soar in the company, with no merit that proved that she was actually deserving. Then, in 2005 when her father became Governor of WV, she was promoted again. This time to COO. Finally, when her father became Senator, in what was deemed a very important seat, Ms. Bresch reached her apex as CEO of Mylan. Rather serendipitous that Ms. Bresch's success was corollary with her father climbing the corrupted political ladder, isn't it? Strike two.
While acting as CEO for Myalin, Ms. Bresch has tainted the company due to her immorality and asininity. First, you have last year's inversion deal that was executed as a means of allowing Myalin to avoid paying billions in taxes. By pairing with a pharmaceutical business in the Netherlands, Ms. Bresch successfully dropped her US tax rates over the last year, and will continue to pay less and less each year. In an ideal world, the motive for this would be to lower the cost of drugs and allow life saving devices to be proliferated for those in need. Instead, Ms. Bresch continued her unethical rampage by hiking up the price of EpiPens from $103.50 in 2009 to the current price of $608.61. This 450% increase in cost is not due to a change in formula, nor a change in the availability of products. What this additional revenue will go towards? Fueling the massive growth in Ms. Bresch's paycheck. During the same time period that the price of EpiPens exploded, her paycheck rose almost 700% from $2.5 million to almost $19 million today. This has sparked massive outrage in just about everyone, not excluding her father. Ms. Bresch's response to all of this? "No one's more frustrated than me." Her plan to appease all the anger was to offer discounts for selected customers. Furthermore, she misplaced the burden of proof in claiming that the real cost increase is due to health insurance rates skyrocketing, manufacturing costs and the system being stacked against their company. But of course, it has nothing to do with greed or the fact that this decision will continue to fortify her already absurd paycheck. That's three strikes. Someone needs to get this repugnant CEO out of here.
