Our Journey

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The Evolution of Mylan

Increasing access to medicine for patients in the U.S.

For nearly 60 years, increasing access to high quality medicine and improving patient health was Mylan’s mission. Mylan was founded in 1961 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to ensure access to affordable medicine in difficult-to-reach communities.

In the early years, the company then known as “Milan,” named after one of the company’s co-founders, Milan “Mike” Puskar, bought finished dose medicines and resold them from the trunk of a Pontiac Bonneville to rural pharmacies and physicians throughout the Appalachian region of the U.S.

Later, manufacturing operations began in Morgantown, West Virginia. The team there initially made vitamins and empty gelatin capsules but soon switched focus. In 1966, Mylan received approval to manufacture penicillin G – Mylan’s first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. The antibiotic marked the company’s entrance into generic pharmaceuticals, creating an opportunity to serve patients in a new and more expansive way.

As Mylan’s vision grew, so did the company. In 1972, Milan changed its name to Mylan Laboratories as a way to highlight its technical expertise and to make it easier for investors to find the company at the end of the fine-print stock listings in newspapers after the first shares of Mylan stock began trading under the ticker symbol MYLN.

Relentless in its efforts to expand access, Mylan steadily grew its own product line and the number of customers it reached. In 1984, it broke new ground with the introduction of an antihypertensive called Maxzide^®, making Mylan the first generics manufacturer in the world to patent a new drug. This milestone was the precursor of future research and development capabilities, which would help build one of the most robust pipelines in the industry.

The 1990s was spent strategically acquiring a number of companies to establish an even stronger presence in the pharmaceutical industry. In 1995, Mylan had the most dispensed line of pharmaceuticals in America, brand or generic.

Expanding Mylan's global presence

Mylan’s steady growth from 1976 to the early 2000s was achieved through a focus on enhancing operations and developing new medicines. In February 2002, Robert J. Coury was elected to the board of directors and became chief executive officer in September of that same year. Coury scaled the company virtually overnight from operating in a single country to reaching countries around the world by acquiring a majority stake in Matrix Laboratories and completing the acquisition of Merck KGaA’s generics business. Rajiv Malik joined the Mylan team at that time and was instrumental in securing many key partnerships for the company, displaying a unique ability for identifying scientifically strong, operationally sound and commercially robust collaborators.

In 2011, Mylan celebrated its golden anniversary. A year later, the company would make history again, naming Heather Bresch as chief executive officer – the first woman to run a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. Bresch began her career at Mylan in 1992 and held roles of increasing responsibility in more than 15 functional areas, uniquely positioning her to take Mylan to the next level.

The year Bresch was named chief executive officer, Mylan led the way with industry partners to advocate for the 2012 Generic Drug User Fee Act (GDUFA), which increased the FDA’s ability to perform critical program functions and created quicker access to medicines for patients as well as passage of the FDA Safety and Innovation Act of 2012, which updated a 1938 U.S. law to hold all pharmaceutical manufacturers to the same high quality standards regardless of whether abroad or in the U.S. While leading the company, Bresch instilled not only disciplined global processes, infrastructure and diversification following Mylan’s transformative acquisitions but also a future-focused strategy.

Much of the decade saw Mylan continuing its evolution while growing its commitment to patients in countries large and small, and across multiple product lines and capabilities. During this time, Mylan became well known for its expertise in smoothly integrating acquisitions, including the 2015 purchase of Abbott’s branded specialty and generics lines in the world’s developed markets, Renaissance and Meda in 2016 and Apicore in 2017, all of which expanded Mylan’s portfolio and capabilities in manufacturing, R&D and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API).

Viatris is the culmination of Mylan’s strategic efforts to increase scale in all areas – geographic reach, R&D, manufacturing, API, combined product portfolio and global commercial footprint.

The legacy of Upjohn

Born out of Pfizer’s Established Medicines division, Upjohn was created as a standalone business in 2018 within Pfizer. Its mission was to relieve the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) with trusted, quality medicines for every patient, everywhere.

With a rapidly expanding global middle class across emerging markets, particularly in Asia, and an enhanced focus on quality and affordable healthcare by policymakers worldwide, there had never been a more pressing time to focus on addressing the rising public health impact of NCDs.

At the heart of everything Upjohn did were its patients, its people and the quality of its business. These were the cornerstones of the company’s efforts to build a healthier world for everyone.

Key to this success was the strength of Upjohn’s portfolio, which included complex generics and biosimilars, and harnessed the power of some of the world’s most recognized brands, including CELEBREX^® (celecoxib capsules), DILANTIN^® (extended phenytoin sodium capsules, USP), LIPITOR^® (atorvastatin calcium), LYRICA^® (pregabalin) and VIAGRA^® (sildenafil citrate) – category-leading products across cardiovascular, pain, mental health and urology therapeutic areas.

Building a healthier world for everyone – and delivering better outcomes for patients – is Upjohn’s legacy. By marrying its global footprint and the resources of a world-class multinational with the mindset of a startup, the business was set to anticipate change and capture growth opportunities.