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Heather Bresch – Strategic Development
On becoming Mylan’s CEO in 2012, Heather Bresch saw an opportunity
to capitalise on the nearly fifty-year-old EpiPen, acquired from Merck in
2007 which had sales of around $200m.
Her chosen strategy was predicated on marketing and advocacy,
launching a marketing campaign to increase awareness of the dangers
of anaphylaxis and to facilitate EpiPen becoming the industry generic
trademark. Mylan also successfully lobbied both the FDA to broaden the
label to include risk of anaphylaxis and Congress to generate legislation
making EpiPens available in schools and in public places similar to that
for defibrillators. The result was that Mylan's EpiPens rapidly gained
market dominance.
In 2013 president Barak Obama passed legislation that helped public
schools build up emergency supplies of EpiPens. Before the price hikes
broke, prescriptions for EpiPens had been steadily increasing since
2013 - peaking every year in August, when parents of children with
severe allergies typically stocked up on the life-saving devices for use in
schools.
By the first half of 2015, Mylan had an 85% market share (EpiPen
devices) in the US with sales of around $1.5bn accounting for 40% of
Mylan's profit. However, those profits were also due in part to Mylan's
continually raising the price of EpiPens starting in 2009.
