Mylan CEO Gets a 600% Pay Raise During Epipen's 400% Price Hike, Is She the Next Martin Shkreli?

August 24, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

PITTSBURGH – As the price of Mylan NV ’s EpiPen soared by more than 400 percent, so too did the compensation of company executives, particularly Chief Executive Officer Heather Bresch, who saw her salary skyrocket more than 670 percent.

From 2007 to 2015, Bresch’s annual salary climbed from $2.4 million to $18.9 million, at the same time the price of the EpiPen, which delivers precise doses of medication that costs approximately $1, jumped from $57 to nearly $500, according to a new NBC News report. Bresch is listed as No. 95 on Forbes Magazine’s 2016 World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list.

In addition to Bresch, other Mylan executives saw their salaries jump. Company president Rajiv Malik saw his base salary increase to $1 million in 2015 and Anthony Mauro, Mylan’s chief communications officer, saw a salary increase of 13.6 percent to $625,000, NBC said.

It’s not uncommon for a chief executive to see a substantial increase in salary, particularly if company revenue is dramatically increasing, as is the case with Mylan and the EpiPen. For 2015, the EpiPen generated $1.2 billion for Mylan, about 40 percent of all revenue for the company. But, as Forbes noted, the salary increase has caused an optics problem for the company, particularly since the EpiPen is a life-saving treatment for those with anaphylactic allergies, such as bee stings or some food allergies. The high price of the drug has caused many people to forego purchasing it, particularly since it’s only used in case of an emergency.

As could be expected, the outrage on social media has been furious. On Twitter, numerous people have decried the high cost of the drug, with one user questioning if the high cost of the drug and Bresch’s high salary was an indication of the loss of “heart and soul.” Consumers have expressed outrage that the same EpiPen can be acquired in foreign markets for a fraction of the cost. A petition on Moveon.org calling for Mylan to end the EpiPen “price gouging” has received 89,980 signatures as of this morning.

This afternoon the American Medical Association also called for Mylan to check the costs of the EpiPen.

“With Americans across the country sending their children back to school this month, many parents and schools are encountering sticker shock over the cost of EpiPens. Although the product is unchanged since 2009, the cost has skyrocketed by more than 400 percent during that period. The AMA has long urged the pharmaceutical industry to exercise reasonable restraint in drug pricing, and, with lives on the line, we urge the manufacturer to do all it can to rein in these exorbitant costs. With many parents required to buy two or more sets of EpiPens just to keep their children safe, the high cost of these devices may either keep them out of reach of people in need or force some families to choose between EpiPens and other essentials. The AMA will continue to promote market-based strategies to achieve access to and affordability of health care goods and services,” the AMA said in a statement.

The price increase is reminiscent of the action taken by Martin Shkreli and his former company, Turing Pharmaceuticals , which acquired the 65-year-old toxoplasmosis treatment Daraprim and raised the price by 5,000 percent. That’s not a comparison that’s lost on the public, many of whom on social media are comparing Bresch to the man known as the “pharma bro.” On Twitter and in the media, Shkreli has defended Mylan’s moves. He told CBS on Tuesday that Mylan is “the good guy."

“They had one product, and they finally started making a little bit of money and everyone is going crazy over it. Like I said, it’s $300 a pack. $300. My iPhone is $700. ... It’s $300 and 90 percent of Americans are insured,” Shkreli told CBS. Not only has there been public outrage, but members of the U.S. Senate have begun to scrutinize the company, that now has its home offices in the more business tax-friendly country of Hertofrdshire, England, for blocking access to competition, among other things.

Mylan has a near monopoly on the EpiPen following Sanofi’s recall of its Auvi-Q epinephrine injection for the treatment of severe allergic reactions. The company suffered a major hit when it recalled the pens after the company determined the products may have inaccurate dosage delivery. At the time there were approximately 200,000 people in the United States who used the Auvi-Q pen.

Mylan has sought to quell some of the outrage. On Tuesday, the company issued a press release noting that in 2015 its company program, the My EpiPen Savings Card, has allowed 80 percent of users to receive the EpiPen for a cost of zero dollars. The company said it has also distributed nearly 700,000 free EpiPens to more than 65,000 schools across the United States.

Mylan acquired the EpiPen from Merck in 2007 and the price of the drug was $57. EpiPen is now sold as a two-pack as opposed to a single autoinjector.