This isn’t the first time Mylan chief executive Heather Bresch has been under fire.
Bresch, who started out in a low-level position in quality control at one of the company’s factories, is the first female head of a large pharmaceutical company. She made a name for herself by turning the EpiPen — once an obscure injection device for allergy sufferers that she calls her “baby” — into a blockbuster billion-dollar drug. But the 47-year-old has found herself in the hot seat in recent weeks as consumers and lawmakers have expressed outrage over the rising cost of the drug and have called for investigations into the company’s pricing practices.
While the mounting attacks may be enough to unnerve even the hardened chief executive, Bresch has a longer history than most of dealing with such issues and coming out (mostly) unscathed.
In fact, Fortune, in a tough profile, once described her career as being full of “ethically messy mishaps and public relations gaffes.” At least two involve her own father, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va.
The most scandalous incident occurred in 2008 shortly after she was named the company’s chief executive and involved the master’s degree in business administration from West Virginia University that was listed on her resume. It turns out she never got it. An investigation by the school, prompted by a newspaper report, found that some administrators had added courses and grades to her transcript to make it look as if she had completed the required coursework.
The incident made headlines across the state because her father was governor at the time and the school’s president, Mike Garrison, was a longtime family friend and former business associate.
The controversy blew over quickly for Bresch, and she remained chief executive, but Garrison and a slew of other administrators resigned from their positions following expressions of no confidence from students, faculty and alumni.
In 2015, Bresch caused another firestorm when she merged Mylan with a company in the Netherlands. The transaction is known as a “tax inversion” and involves joining with a foreign entity to move a legal corporate headquarters abroad. Doing so provides a major advantage: trading U.S. corporate taxes, which at 39 percent are among the highest in the world, for a tax bill from a different country that is presumably less.
Such moves are so unpopular with the American public that only a handful of U.S. companies have attempted them. Members of Congress — including her father — denounced such tactics as undermining the U.S. economy.
Then there’s the matter of Bresch’s salary and other perks, which are unusually high, even in this era of crazy compensation for company executives.
“EpiPen prices aren’t the only thing to jump at Mylan,” NBC News reported. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Bresch’s total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068 from 2007 to 2015. That’s a striking 671 percent increase. That period coincides with the time when Mylan acquired the rights to EpiPens and steadily hiked the average wholesale price from about $55 to $320.
A standard 2-pack now costs between $600 to $700. The price has prompted outrage among many consumers who have taken to social media to complain that they can no longer afford the potentially lifesaving medicine.
“A trip to the ER is now cheaper. HOW CAN THIS BE??” one woman tweeted on Wednesday. Actress Mia Farrow weighed in: “Grandchild w severe allergies needs life saving #Epipen. Cost has soared. Luckily we can pay the $600. Impossible for many scared parents.”
The contrast between Bresch’s lavish lifestyle — her signature designer five-inch stilettos for example — and those of ordinary families struggling to afford the drugs her company sells is a theme that has come up again and again.
While many companies have curbed the use of company aircraft for personal business or required executives to provide reimbursement, Mylan has continued to allow Bresch to use one. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported earlier this year that her corporate jet use hit $310,312, including both personal and business trips.
Another Mylan executive, Robert J. Coury, was called out by The Wall Street Journal in 2012 for having a side business that is a record label that promotes his son’s music career and for taking the jet frequently to cities that coincided with his son’s concerts.
Powerful lobbyist Tony Podesta steps down amid Mueller’s Russia probe
Last week, Tony Podesta, an eminence in the annals of Washington lobbying, threw one of his signature events, a big birthday bash at his stately stone manse in Kalorama. His guests thought he was on top of his world, one of the men who makes the city go.
On Monday, hours after the first indictments in the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and the Russian government, Podesta abruptly quit his post atop the Podesta Group, the capital’s eighth-wealthiest lobbying firm.
.. raised questions about the work Podesta’s firm did with Manafort to buff the image of the Ukrainian government.
.. “It is impossible to run a public affairs firm while you are under attack by Fox News and the right wing media,”
.. For decades, Tony and John Podesta — brothers who share a Jesuit education, a devotion to liberal causes and a passion for politics — have been central players in Washington. And in the past year, both have been drawn into the orbit of scandals.
.. Tony’s Podesta Group is one of two firms described in Monday’s indictment as having been recruited by Manafort and Gates to lobby on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych
.. Both the Podesta Group and the other firm, Mercury Public Affairs, have said they were hired to lobby for a European nonprofit based in Brussels trying to polish Ukraine’s image in the West. But behind the scenes, prosecutors allege, the real client was a political party led by the former Ukraine president, who was friendly with Russia.
.. To their opponents, the Podestas are quintessential swamp rats, exemplars of the permanent Washington establishment. Their defenders, however, view them as the oil that makes the gears of government turn.
.. Tony Podesta has been a pivotal figure in the murky connections between policy and politics, becoming wealthy on fees from industries and foreign entities that want something from Congress and the White House. He also bundles big donations and dispenses them to politicians who might someday be helpful to those lobbying clients.
.. the Podesta Group, representing some of the country’s biggest and most powerful businesses, including Walmart, Bank of America and BP.
.. This year, the firm’s top clients are Mylan, a pharmaceutical company; Wells Fargo; Crawford Group, the parent of Enterprise car rentals; and Lockheed Martin
.. Along the way, the firm also represented a number of foreign entities, including the government of Egypt under ex-dictator Hosni Mubarak.
.. “More and more, foreign countries turn to lobbyists to do work that diplomats once did themselves,”