According to newly unsealed court documents acquired by The Intercept, Sen. Joe Manchin’s daughter, a former pharmaceutical CEO, collaborated directly with the CEO of Pfizer to keep EpiPen prices artificially high.
Heather Bresch — then the CEO of Mylan, which holds a patent for EpiPens — orchestrated a scheme in which Pfizer would divest from its EpiPen competitor, giving Mylan a virtual monopoly on the lifesaving medication. In just a few short years, the price for two EpiPens skyrocketed from $100 to $600.
As Manchin threatens to tank President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion infrastructure package, which would threaten pharmaceutical profits by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, The Intercept is continuing to investigate the Manchin family’s questionable business dealings.
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This isn’t the first time that Joe Manchin and his wife, Gayle Manchin, have used their political influence to increase the profitability of their daughter’s company. As the head of the National Association of State Boards of Education, Bresch’s mother lobbied states to require schools to stock epinephrine.
And a new expose by The Intercept and Type Investigations reveals that it’s not just Manchin’s daughter who has been involved in shady business dealings.
After entering politics, Joe Manchin left his son in charge of a series of coal companies the senior Manchin had founded. While the senator is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the companies, he has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from those firms and retains millions more in stock options, according to financial disclosures.
These business dealings are under new scrutiny after Manchin came out against several climate provisions in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation package — provisions that could jeopardize the Manchin family fossil fuel fortune if they were to become law.
The Intercept has been a leading voice in exposing Manchin’s conflicts of interest that pit action to tackle the climate crisis against his family’s wealth. And these newly unsealed documents provide a startling window into the ways in which corporate pharma executives manipulate markets and price-gouge patients in order to line their pockets. But these investigations require painstaking reporting, sifting through government and financial documents, and more.
