EpiPen maker Mylan comes under fire for CEO’s $98 million pay package

EpiPen maker Mylan has come under fire for paying its former CEO, Robert Coury, $98 million in 2016, a year when controversy over EpiPen price hikes caused the market value of the company to tumble.

Shareholders were outraged, and stakeholders have urged Mylan board members over the exorbitant pay package, CNN Money reported.

A shareholder advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, had criticised Mylan's board for ''multiple egregious pay decisions.'' The company also accused Mylan of failing to heed ''warning signs'' ahead of last summer's controversy over EpiPen's pricing.

In seven years, the price of a two-pack of EpiPens was up by 400 per cent.

The ISS report cited Mylan's CEO's ''outsized compensation'' amid huge losses suffered by shareholders.

Advisory firm Glass Lewis produced a senate report on Friday that severely criticised the company's compensation committee for Coury's ''colossal pay package'' with his becoming executive chairman, CNN Money said.

Mylan received an ''F'' for its compensation decisions, from the committee which called for ousting of its compensation committee, which approved executive pay.

Advisory firms have been urging shareholders for the ouster of Mylan's board of directors over controversy around executive compensation.

Committee members included Mylan directors Wendy Cameron, Neil Dimick and Mark Parish.

ISS had also called for removal of all 10 of Mylan's existing directors, including CEO Heather Bresch, from their positions.

Mylan's biggest issue was EpiPen for which the company had hiked the price of the injectable allergy medicine 17 times after it was acquired in 2007, from about $100 to over $600 for two pens.

A public outcry followed as the drug pricing became a national issue in the 2016 election. The company had also allegedly overcharged Medicaid for EpiPen for years, and agreed to a $465 million settlement with the US government over the issue last year. The settlement was still being negotiated, and a report from the Department of Health and Human Services posted last month by senator Charles Grassley suggested that the overcharging might have been more significant than originally thought.