Heather Bresch Explained

Heather Bresch
Birth Name:Heather Renée Manchin
Birth Date:27 June 1969
Birth Place:Morgantown, West Virginia, U.S.
Other Names:Heather Kirby[1]
Alma Mater:West Virginia University (BA)
Occupation:Businesswoman
Former CEO of Mylan
Parents:Gayle Conelly (mother)
Joe Manchin (father)
Spouse:
    Children:4

    Heather Bresch ( Manchin; born June 27, 1969[2]) is an American business executive. In 2012, she was named as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Netherlands-based pharmaceutical company Mylan, becoming the first woman to run a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company.[3] Bresch retired in 2020, upon the closing of Mylan’s combination with Upjohn. Bresch has been a central figure in two controversies: a 2007 accusation of inflating her resume with an unearned MBA degree, and as the CEO of Mylan during the 2016 controversy over pricing of the company's EpiPen products. In 2015, she was listed as #22 in Fortune magazine's “Most Powerful Women” list.[4]

    Bresch is the daughter of former West Virginia Governor and current U.S. Senator Joe Manchin.

    Early life and education

    Born Heather Renée Manchin, in Morgantown, West Virginia, Bresch grew up in Fairmont and Farmington, West Virginia, in a Roman Catholic family of partial Italian and Czech descent.[5] She is the daughter of Gayle Conelly Manchin and Joe Manchin, who was a prominent politician throughout her childhood and is currently the senior United States senator from West Virginia.[6]

    Bresch attended Fairmont Senior High School in Fairmont, West Virginia,[7] and graduated from West Virginia University (WVU) in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations.[8] She also landed her first job in 1991, working as a clerk for Mylan.[9]

    MBA controversy

    See main article: West Virginia University M.B.A. controversy. In 2007, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Bresch had claimed to have an MBA degree from West Virginia University, but the university disputed that.[10] The university subsequently awarded her an EMBA despite her having completed only 26 of the required 48 credits. Her father was governor of the state of West Virginia at the time.[11]

    In the ensuing controversy, the university announced in April 2008 that it would rescind Bresch's degree. Michael Garrison, WVU president at the time, was reported to be "a family friend and former business associate of Bresch" and a former consultant and lobbyist for Mylan.[12] After a faculty vote of no confidence, Garrison and several university officials subsequently resigned.[11] [13]

    Career

    Early work

    In 1992, Bresch started working as a clerk in a factory owned by Mylan, a generic drug company, and rose through the company to become the chief executive officer in 2012.[14] At a WVU basketball game in 1992, Bresch's father, politician Joe Manchin, mentioned his daughter's job search to Mylan CEO Milan Puskar, and the company soon after offered her a position in the quality control department of a factory in Morgantown, before eventually promoting her to the executive level.

    Government relations and advocacy

    From 2002 to 2005, Bresch served as Mylan's director of government relations.[15] She contributed to the development of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which created Medicare Part D, a prescription-drug benefit.[16]

    In 2006, Bresch testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging to lobby for changes to the law that would prevent pharmaceutical companies from raising challenges to the introduction of generic competitors by filing citizen's petitions with the FDA, and that would prevent pharma companies from undercutting the profits of generic drug companies by making deals for authorized generics to be introduced.[17]

    When Mylan expanded internationally, Bresch noticed that Mylan's U.S.-based pharmaceutical manufacturing plant had full-time staff from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) devoted to it, whereas facilities abroad had not been inspected by the FDA for more than a decade.[18]

    Bresch persuaded several of Mylan's competitors to support what became the Generic Drug User Fee Act, which she proposed to lawmakers in 2010. Under the law the generics industry would pay the FDA fees of $300 million to get their drugs approved, and in return the FDA would inspect foreign drug manufacturing facilities at the same rate as U.S-based facilities.[18] [19] [20] [21] Economic analysis of the Act showed that it increased the cost of some generic drugs and benefitted the largest pharmaceutical companies at the expense of smaller companies.[22]

    Mylan executive

    Bresch has served in several executive roles at Mylan, such as senior vice president of corporate strategic development,[23] Head of North American Operations,[24] chief operating officer, and chief integration officer.[21] [25]

    Bresch led the integration of Matrix Laboratories Limited and Merck KGaA's generics and specialty pharmaceutical businesses with Mylan's operations.[21] She was chair of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) for two terms.[26] Bresch was appointed president of Mylan in 2009[21] and joined Mylan's board of directors in March 2011.[27]

    Bresch's appointment as chief executive officer (CEO) was announced in 2011, and she officially took the position in January 2012.[21] Bresch was the first female CEO of a large pharmaceutical business.[28] At the time, she was one of 18 female CEOs of a Fortune 500 company.[29] After seeing how few female candidates were available for positions that require a background in science and math, she became more interested in promoting math and science education among young girls.[30]

    Bresch was recognized in Esquires 2011 "Patriots of the Year" list for her work pushing for the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA).[31] She was named one of Fortune magazine's "50 Most Powerful Women In Business" in 2014.

    Also in 2014, Bresch and Mylan announced a $5.3 billion acquisition of Abbott Laboratories[32] as part of a corporate tax inversion plan to re-organize the company in the Netherlands and move its domicile to a country with lower taxes.[33] Bresch said the decision was necessary to "maintain competitiveness against pharmaceutical manufacturers that had already executed similar inversion strategies."[31] The company completed the complex tax inversion in February 2015.[34] The inversion—which formally resulted in the creation of a new company, Mylan N.V., with 78% of its shares held by former Mylan Inc. shareholders and 22% of its shared held by Abbott Labs shareholders—was expected to immediately drop Mylan's U.S. corporate tax rate to 21% (from 24%) in the first year "and into the high teens over the next three to five years."[34] The New York Times said that it was somewhat "disconcerting" for a company that benefits from large government contracts to renounce their citizenship for tax benefits.[31] Proxy filings show that from 2007 to 2015, Bresch's compensation rose from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068, a 671% increase in pay.[35]

    EpiPen pricing and retirement

    In 2016, Mylan's pricing of the EpiPen, used to treat anaphylaxis (severe allergic reactions), was severely criticized. Mylan had secured the rights to the nearly 50-year-old EpiPen as part of the Merck KGaA deal in 2007.[36] At that time annual sales were around $200 million.[37] Bresch launched an advertising campaign to increase awareness of "EpiPen" as a treatment for anaphylaxis; the company also successfully lobbied the FDA to broaden the label to include risk of anaphylaxis and in parallel, successfully lobbied Congress to generate legislation making EpiPens available in schools and other public places. The company hired the same lobbyists that Medtronic had used for its defibrillator legislation.[37] [38] From 2007 to 2016, Mylan increased the price of EpiPens by 461 percent, from about $100 for a package of two pens to about $600.[35] By the first half of 2015, Mylan had an 85% market share of such devices in the U.S.,[37] and in that year sales reached around $1.5 billion and accounted for 40% of Mylan's profit.[39] The price increase was met with widespread criticism of Bresch and Mylan.[36] [40] [41] [42] Bresch explained at the 2016 Forbes Healthcare Summit that Mylan's price increases were justified by the many improvements she claimed the company had made to the product.[43] Amid this backlash, Bresch led Mylan to introduce a generic version of the device which sells for half the price of the brand-name device.[44] [45] The generic version in 2016 remained more expensive than the original brand version of EpiPen prior to Mylan's purchase of the rights, even when accounting for inflation.[46]

    In July 2019, Bresch announced that she would retire in 2020 after Mylan merged with Upjohn. The merger was completed in November 2020 and Bresch stepped down.[47] The new company was named Viatris. According to the Pittsburgh Business Journal, when she left Mylan, she was the second most highly paid executive in the area of Pittsburgh, and received a "golden parachute" estimated at $30.8 million.

    In 2021, a case was ongoing to determine whether Mylan had attempted to monopolize the EpiPen market, with both Mylan N.V. and Bresch being sued on racketeering claims and anti-trust claims. The lawsuit, which consolidated several consumer cases, was moved to federal court in Kansas City in 2017. In February 2020, the lawsuit moved ahead as a nationwide class action. On June 24, 2021, a federal judge tossed the racketeering claims and some of the antitrust claims, also dropping RICO claims against Bresch. The case went on trial on September 7, 2021. On September 7, 2021, Ryan Grim of The Intercept reported that during an ongoing racketeering case involving Mylan and Bresch, "newly released court documents show [Bresch] discussing a deal with Pfizer to eliminate a chief competitor to EpiPen, clearing the way for major price hikes." The 2010 and 2011 email discussions, unsealed by the judge, showed Bresch's assistant discussing divesting from Adrenaclick after the closure of the Pfizer/King deal. They "also show Bresch approving a scheme to force customers, captured by the company’s monopoly, to purchase two EpiPens at once, regardless of medical need."

    Honors and awards

    Bresch was ranked #31 in Fortune magazine's 2014 "50 Most Powerful Women" list.[16] [28] [48] That same year, she won the EY Global Impact of the Year Award.[49] Bresch was the 2017 Albert Schweitzer Leadership Award honoree at an awards gala hosted by the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation.[50]

    Bresch served as chair of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association’s board of directors in 2016, 2005, and 2004, and as vice chair in 2003 and 2006.[51]

    Personal life

    Bresch is married to Jones Day lawyer Jeffrey J. Bresch. She was previously married to West Virginia businessman Douglas Kirby. She lives with her husband and four children in Sewickley Heights, Pennsylvania.[1] [52]

    Notes and References

    1. News: Patricia Sabatini and Len Boselovic. MBA mystery in Morgantown. One of those documents mentions Ms. Bresch -- Ms. Kirby at the time because of her earlier marriage to Douglas Kirby -- by name. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. December 21, 2007. February 6, 2015.
    2. News: June 30, 1969. First Born Child. 70. 5. Beckley Post-Herald. 70. Beckley, W.Va.. December 11, 2020. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Manchin III of Morgantown, have announced the birth of their first child, a daughter. Born Friday [June 27, 1969] at 3 p.m. in West Virginia University Medical Center... and has been named Heather Renee..
    3. Web site: Mylan Inc.. Fortune. en. 2020-03-03.
    4. News: Why Wall Street Loves to Hate Mylan's Female CEO. Wieczner. Jen. 2015-09-11. Fortune. 2017-10-23. en.
    5. News: Nikki. Bowman. No Generic Success Story. WV Living Magazine. June 11, 2012. February 6, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150207042827/http://www.wvliving.com/Summer-2012/No-Generic-Success-Story/?cparticle=3&siarticle=2. February 7, 2015. dead.
    6. News: Leslie P. Norton. Medicine Woman. Her father, Joe Manchin, is the former governor of West Virginia, and now the state's junior senator in Washington, D.C.. Barron's. March 2, 2013. February 6, 2015.
    7. News: Joselyn. King. Garrison: I Need To Stay at WVU. Garrison, a Marion County native, also is a long-time friend of the Manchin family who attended Fairmont Senior High School in Fairmont, W.Va., with Bresch. The Intelligencer & Wheeling News Register. May 17, 2008. February 6, 2015.
    8. News: Aaron. Taube. 29 People With 'Soft' College Majors Who Became Extremely Successful. Business Insider Indonesia. September 6, 2014. February 6, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150207003420/http://www.businessinsider.co.id/successful-liberal-arts-majors-2014-9/20/#.VNU_UUtDGRU. February 7, 2015. dead.
    9. Web site: Heather Bresch. Forbes. en. 2020-05-14.
    10. [Ian Urbina]
    11. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/us/28westvirginia.html "Provost Quits Over Degree to Governor’s Child"
    12. Boselovic, Len & Patricia Sabatini, "University revokes degree after scathing report on M.B.A. awarded to Bresch", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; accessed April 24, 2008.
    13. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna25003187 "College president to quit over degree scandal"
    14. Web site: Bresch to leave CEO job after Mylan merger with Upjohn. Gough. Paul. 29 July 2019. Pittsburgh Business Times.
    15. News: WHIRL Magazine. Mylan CEO Continues To Expand International Medicine Efforts. April 22, 2014. September 26, 2014. Andrea. Bosco. October 24, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141024192408/http://whirlmagazine.com/mylan-ceo-continues-to-expand-international-medicine-efforts/. dead.
    16. News: West Virginia Living. June 11, 2012. No Generic Success Story. Nikki. Bowman. September 26, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140911044956/http://www.wvliving.com/Summer-2012/No-Generic-Success-Story/?cparticle=2&siarticle=1. September 11, 2014. dead.
    17. Book: Seaman. John. Landry. John T.. Mylan 50 Years of Unconventional Success. 2011. Mylan, Inc.. August 28, 2016.
    18. News: Deal in Place for Inspecting Foreign Drugs. Gardiner. Harris. August 13, 2011. September 26, 2014. The New York Times.
    19. News: What it really takes to change Washington. Steve. Clemons. June 12, 2012. September 16, 2014.
    20. News: Esquire's Americans of the year:Patriots. Esquire. September 26, 2014. Tim. Heffernan.
    21. News: Medicine Woman. Barron's. Leslie. Norton. March 2, 2013. September 26, 2014.
    22. Berndt. Ernst. April 11, 2018. The generic drug user fee amendments: an economic perspective. Journal of Law and the Biosciences. 5. 1. 103–141. 10.1093/jlb/lsy002. 5912081. 29707218.
    23. Bloomberg Mylan Nv (MYL:NASDAQ GS) Executive Profile: Heather Bresch, bloomberg.com; accessed August 26, 2016.
    24. Book: Jack W. Plunkett. Plunkett's Health Care Industry Almanac 2008: The Only Comprehensive Guide To The Health Care Industry. October 2007. Plunkett Research, Ltd.. 978-1-59392-096-8. 547.
    25. News: Sabatini. Patricia. Len. Boselovi. MBA mystery in Morgantown. Pittsburgh Post Gazette. December 21, 2007. September 26, 2014.
    26. News: Personalities of Pittsburgh: Heather Bresch. December 20, 2013. Kris. Mamula. October 4, 2014. Pittsburgh Business Times.
    27. News: Heather Bresch named to Mylan board. March 1, 2011. Kris. Mamula. February 13, 2015. Pittsburgh Business Times.
    28. News: Jennifer. Jett. West Virginia Executive. West Virginia's Leading Lady. Winter 2014. September 26, 2014.
    29. News: Mylan's Heather Bresch added to brief list of female CEOs. Alex. Nixon. Pittsburgh Tribune. October 27, 2011.
    30. News: The Broadsheet: August 28th. Fortune. Caroline. Fairchild. August 28, 2014. September 26, 2014.
    31. News: The New York Times. Reluctantly, Patriot Flees Homeland for Greener Tax Pastures. Andrew. Sorkin. July 14, 2014. October 4, 2014.
    32. News: Mylan CEO Bresch sets sights on growth. Alex. Nixon. September 17, 2014. Tribune Business News. September 26, 2014.
    33. News: 'Inversion' is a hot button issue, but for Mylan CEO Heather Bresch, it could be a family feud. Caroline. Portillo. July 25, 2014. September 26, 2014. BizJournals.
    34. Patty Tascarella, Mylan inversion deal completed, Pittsburgh Business Times (February 27, 2015).
    35. News: NBC News. Mylan Execs Gave Themselves Raises As They Hiked EpiPen Prices. August 23, 2016. August 26, 2016. Ben. Popken.
    36. News: Parker-Pope. Tara. Rabkin Peachman. Rachel. EpiPen Price Rise Sparks Concern for Allergy Sufferers. August 22, 2016. The New York Times.
    37. Koons, Cynthia & Robert Langreth. How Marketing Turned the EpiPen Into a Billion-Dollar Business, bloomberg.com, September 23, 2015.
    38. News: Fortune. Mylan CEO Heather Bresch on why she admires Bill Gates. October 4, 2014. November 21, 2013. Colleen. Leahey.
    39. Emily Willingham for Forbes. Aug 21, 2016 "Why Did Mylan Hike EpiPen Prices 400%? Because They Could", forbes.com; accessed August 28, 2016.
    40. Web site: Mangan. Dan. Mylan CEO Bresch: 'No one's more frustrated than me' about EpiPen price furor. 25 August 2016 . CNBC. August 27, 2016.
    41. News: Eunjung Cha. Ariana. Senator's daughter who raised price of EpiPen got paid $19 million salary, perks in 2015. August 27, 2016. Washington Post. August 24, 2016.
    42. News: Edney. Anna. House. Billy. The Senator's Daughter Who Raised Prices on the EpiPen. Bloomberg. 24 August 2016 . August 27, 2016.
    43. News: Weintraub. Arlene. Mylan CEO Bresch Admits 'Full Responsibility' For EpiPen Price Hikes. 6 November 2017. Forbes. 1 December 2016.
    44. News: Mangan. Dan. Mylan CEO Heather Bresch says diversification is boosting company after EpiPen controversy. 6 November 2017. CNBC. 3 March 2017.
    45. News: Mylan CEO on EpiPen drug price controversy: "I get the outrage". 6 November 2017. CBS News. 27 January 2017.
    46. Web site: Why Did Mylan Hike EpiPen Prices 400%? Because They Could. Willingham. Emily. Forbes. en. 2020-03-23.
    47. Web site: 16 November 2020. Mylan completes merger with Upjohn to form Viatris. 2020-11-18. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. en.
    48. News: 31: Heather Bresch. Fortune. October 4, 2014. 2014.
    49. News: Oravecz. John D.. Ernst & Young names Entrepreneurs of the Year for W.Pa., W.Va. region. 6 November 2017. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. 21 June 2014.
    50. News: Boutiette. Crystal. 2017 NYC Albert Schweitzer Awards Honoree-Heather Bresch. 6 November 2017. Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation. 17 April 2017. 7 November 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20171107005559/http://blog.hoby.org/2017-nyc-albert-schweitzer-awards-honoree-heather-bresch/. dead.
    51. Web site: Heather Bresch: CEO of Mylan Mylan. www.mylan.com. en. 2020-03-23.
    52. News: Ethan. Lott. High-end home sales have been going strong over the past three years. No. 1, 202-204 Scaife Road in Sewickley Heights, was bought by Jeffrey Bresch and Mylan Inc. CEO Heather Bresch from IPEG Inc. Chairman G. Watts Humphrey and Sally K. Humphrey for $2.85 million.. Pittsburgh Business Times. April 26, 2013. February 6, 2015.