Mylan: The Company
Today, Mylan Pharmaceuticals is an international giant, doing business in over 165 territories and countries and boasting 50 manufacturing locations worldwide. They provide over 635 products, and represent more prescriptions that the total in the United States filled by Pfizer, GSK, Johnson and Johnson, AstraZeneca, Merck, Sanofi, and Lilly COMBINED. This gives them an incredible amount of power, which we have unfortunately seen them exploit.
Since the price gouging incident, they have made it abundantly clear to the public that their goal is to do things the "right way". Despite the fallout and embarrassment of being exposed for something so manipulative, they boast of having a track record of excellence when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance. They have set out to create a better world by providing better health. Mylan's mission statement reads as follows:
At Mylan, we are committed to setting new standards in healthcare. Working together around the world to provide 7 billion people access to high quality medicine, we innovate to satisfy unmet needs, make reliability and service excellence a habit, do what is right instead of what is easy, and we impact the future through passionate global leadership.
Mylan's mission is to see that healthcare becomes a right for every person on the planet, not a privilege to a select group. They hold a unique ability to see that this happens because of their global impact. One specific example of this is their investment in the global population with HIV/AIDS. Almost half of the 16.5 million people currently on antiretroviral therapy in developing countries use a Mylan ARV every day. To ensure that they could provide the access, 250 million dollars was invested to expand the production of ARV and today more than 60% of their production is devoted to ARV's.
Another area that they are looking to improve is women's health. In India and emerging markets they are cooperating with UNICEF, UNFPA, and USAID has accelerated women's access to reproductive health medicines. In the US they are the largest supplier of cardiovascular and cancer medicines, and the second largest supplier of depression, anxiety, and antipsychotic treatment which are all common illnesses affecting women. Lastly, in Europe they have made efforts to provide education, conduct awareness campaigns and promote dialogue about topics of interest to women such as a healthy lifestyle. The CEO of Mylan, Heather Bresch, was the first women to become the CEO of a large pharmaceutical company, and continues to advocate for women in corporations and all over the world.
Perhaps the most interesting portion of Mylan's social responsibility booklet, as well as the longest, discusses EpiPens. They claim they saw the overall lack of awareness and attention given to allergic reactions and their treatment as unacceptable, and believed epinephrine auto-injectors should be publicly accessible like defibrillators. Now, in more than 48 states they are able to start prescriptions for epinephrine auto-injectors with schools, as opposed to individual patients, so that the treatment can be readily accessible in the event of an emergency. They also started the EpiPen4Schools program, which gave qualifying four free EpiPen or EpiPen Jr's in addition to training and educational resources. This initiative expanded to public places, with 30 states to date allowing epinephrine in public places.
Whether Mylan felt the need to serve an underrepresented population, or they were looking to redeem themselves for their major scam, they have definitely shown that they are on the right track when it comes to their social responsibility. They made a point to invest in the people who they exploited, and try to gain back some of their trust. Also, the fact that they invested money to ensure that people in poorer countries could have access to their medicine proves that profits aren't their only motivation. However as I discussed in my first post, their imperialistic and monopoly building tendencies are something that needs to be monitored. Fast forward to 9:15 in the video below and you can listen to CEO Heather Bresch discuss that her motivations for taking in other companies, and I think this really indicates their vision for the future.
Her motivation to conquer other pharmaceutical companies, and expand Mylan worldwide is to be able to compete with larger (and less taxed) companies to be able to bring medication for lower prices to people that haven't had access before, which is at the very heart of social responsibility. I see this as an effort to shift their culture away from the one that was built from the start of their company through the early 2000's.
Sources:
Media Sources:
Since the price gouging incident, they have made it abundantly clear to the public that their goal is to do things the "right way". Despite the fallout and embarrassment of being exposed for something so manipulative, they boast of having a track record of excellence when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility and Governance. They have set out to create a better world by providing better health. Mylan's mission statement reads as follows:
At Mylan, we are committed to setting new standards in healthcare. Working together around the world to provide 7 billion people access to high quality medicine, we innovate to satisfy unmet needs, make reliability and service excellence a habit, do what is right instead of what is easy, and we impact the future through passionate global leadership.
Mylan's mission is to see that healthcare becomes a right for every person on the planet, not a privilege to a select group. They hold a unique ability to see that this happens because of their global impact. One specific example of this is their investment in the global population with HIV/AIDS. Almost half of the 16.5 million people currently on antiretroviral therapy in developing countries use a Mylan ARV every day. To ensure that they could provide the access, 250 million dollars was invested to expand the production of ARV and today more than 60% of their production is devoted to ARV's.
Whether Mylan felt the need to serve an underrepresented population, or they were looking to redeem themselves for their major scam, they have definitely shown that they are on the right track when it comes to their social responsibility. They made a point to invest in the people who they exploited, and try to gain back some of their trust. Also, the fact that they invested money to ensure that people in poorer countries could have access to their medicine proves that profits aren't their only motivation. However as I discussed in my first post, their imperialistic and monopoly building tendencies are something that needs to be monitored. Fast forward to 9:15 in the video below and you can listen to CEO Heather Bresch discuss that her motivations for taking in other companies, and I think this really indicates their vision for the future.
Her motivation to conquer other pharmaceutical companies, and expand Mylan worldwide is to be able to compete with larger (and less taxed) companies to be able to bring medication for lower prices to people that haven't had access before, which is at the very heart of social responsibility. I see this as an effort to shift their culture away from the one that was built from the start of their company through the early 2000's.
Sources:
- www.mylan.com/-/media/mylancom/images/global-social-responsibility/files/20170628_gsr_final5.pdf?la=en
- www.mylan.com/en/news/feature-stories/social-responsibility-at-mylan
Media Sources:
- https://marketrealist.com/2015/03/two-factors-driving-us-generics-market
- https://marketrealist.com/2016/01/whats-tucked-away-mylans-antiretroviral-portfolio
- http://www.scarymommy.com/mylan-executives-salaries-increase-epipen/
- https://youtu.be/wPOVj5jVMck?t=9m15s
I think Mylan’s goal of improving women’s health is a clever idea. Not many companies today focus on that aspect, so this could be a great trend Mylan could start and influence on others. The video was interesting to watch as well. The pictures are very relevant to the information that is provided. I also liked how you presented your ideas/ opinions in a respectful and meaningful way. Mylan does seem to be acting upon their visions and goals, which is a great start to recover from their embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteI found their emphasis on women's health extremely beneficial as well. Heather Bresch even has a blog, on the Mylan website, which she repeatedly uses to educate and advocate for women's rights issues. Being a global company also allowed them to extend these initiatives to third world countries with low health standards, not just women in United States!
DeleteI think it's interesting how Mylan is branching out into other areas of Corporate Social Responsibility and not only focusing on pharmaceuticals. It's also interesting to see how their current CEO, cares for issues which are far out of the company's objectives. Their operations in other countries shows initiative, however I wonder how they cater to the third world countries, and nations where economies are much less efficient than the United States? Do they alter the prices, based on what consumers can afford for that demographic, or is the price universal?
ReplyDeleteWhat Mylan has done to improve the access to their medications is exactly what they have done to increase sales: the production of generics. Typically, a brand name drug is launched in the United States and it can take up to ten years before a generic version is produced. Mylan has been able to produce generics, which cost less than half the price charged by the originator in some cases, in as few as 2 or 3 years after a brand name drug is released. This saves the U.S government, international donors, and national programs billions in annual cost.
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ReplyDeleteMental illnesses have increased substantially, especially in the United States, and I attribute that largely to the age of information and the effects that and social media has had on our generation. I agree that Mylan could certainly increase awareness about the issue, but personally I feel that medication is prescribed too quickly and far too early in development of children. People need to try to work out their problems with a therapist before they make the jump to medication. I agree that the EpiPen4Schools program is an awesome initiative, and I agree with the statement they made saying that "an EpiPen needs to be in every public place, the same as a defibrillator".
DeleteI was going to retype what my comment originally said but I don't really remember what I said so I'm going to just respond to you.
DeleteI'm not sure if mental illnesses have increased substantially or whether it was just not acknowledged as much in the past. It's still a very taboo subject in certain cultures, so the numbers may be around the same but we're just more aware of the situation surrounding us due to the internet's presence.
I didn't know that children were prescribed a lot of medicine. That's really interesting.