Note: The title of this article has been updated to read “compensation” rather than “salary.”
As outrage sweeps across the Internet at the price hike for the life-saving EpiPen, it turns out that prices weren’t the only thing to skyrocket at the pharma company Mylan.
According to a report from NBC News, from 2007 to 2015, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch’s compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068, a 671 percent increase.
During that same period, Mylan raised EpiPen prices from $56.64 to $317.82, a 461 percent increase.
NBC News reports that in 2007, Mylan bought the rights to the device, which uses a medication called epinephrine to stop potentially fatal allergic reactions in people. Starting in 2008, the company raised the price of EpiPens by 5 percent, then jacked it up to a 19 percent increase in 2009, and then another hike of 10 percent each year from 2010 to 2013.
Staring in the fourth quarter of 2013 to the second quarter of 2016, “Mylan steadily raised EpiPen prices 15 percent every other quarter” with the stock price more than tripling from $13.29 in 2007 to a high of $47.59 in 2016.
From NBC News:
And while sales of the life-saving drug rose to provide 40 percent of the company’s operating profits in 2014, as Bloomberg reported, salaries for other Mylan executives also went up. In 2015, President Rajiv Malik’s base pay increased 11.1 percent to $1 million, and Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Mauro saw his jump 13.6 percent to $625,000.
Name of #Mylan CEO whose salary went up 671% while #EpiPen price from $100 to $600 may be #HeatherBresch. Her REAL name is G-R-E-E-D…
— Susie (@Groceryhound) August 24, 2016
https://twitter.com/NKondratiev/status/768156250295140352
You think Martin Shkreli is bad? Meet Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals, daughter of Joe Manchin (D-WV) https://t.co/xIeLDiapRv
— Howie Klein (@downwithtyranny) August 22, 2016
Mylan is a company that isn’t without scandal.
During a 2008 investigation, it was found that Bresch didn’t complete the coursework for her MBA that she received from West Virginia University – a school that had received a $20 million donation from Mylan Chairman Milan Puskar in 2003.
Several of the university administrators resigned in the aftermath, including president Mike Garrison. The former Mylan consultant and lobbyist had gone to high school with Bresch, the daughter of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and was a longtime family friend.
Thanks to an outcry from parents, Congress is looking into the company’s price increase. As news of the price hike and salary increases spread, shares of Mylan were down more than 4 percent in trading this Tuesday.
Featured image: Center for American Progress (Flickr)
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