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Op-Ed: The real EpiPen scandal we should be talking about

Tune in to CNBC’s “Closing Bell” on Friday, Aug. 26 at 3:30pm ET. David Martin will be on to discuss the real EpiPen scandal we should be talking about.

Mylan Pharmaceuticals deserves the attention it is getting. Heather Bresch, Mylan’s CEO has every reason in the world to have the smug press photos.  After all, she’s used the mortality of millions who suffer from sudden and acute allergic reactions and heart problems to line her own pockets and those of her investors (while squirreling cash outside the U.S. for tax evasion-like purposes).

Together with Wendy Cameron (Cam Land LLC and Trustee at The Washington Hospital from 2009-2011), The Honorable (retired judge) Robert J. Cindrich (Cindrich Consulting), Robert J. Coury, JoEllen Lyons Dillon (the Chief Legal Officer for the 3-D printing ExOne Company), Neil Dimick (retired EVP at AmerisourceBergen), Melina Higgins (former partner of Goldman Sachs), Douglas J. Leech (Founding Principal of DLJ Advisors), Rajiv Malik, Dr. Joseph C. Maroon (Neurosurgeon at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center), Mark W. Parrish (CEO of Trident USA Health Services), Rodney L. Piatt (Horizon Properties Group LLC), and Randall L. Vanderveen, PhD, R.Ph. (University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy) – Mylan’s esteemed board of real estate developers, bankers, lawyers, medical educators, and corporate executives – her leadership has steered the company into the maelstrom of public controversy around the insanely expensive EpiPen®.

Bresch’s compensation rose 671 percent in 8 years. Media outlets should be doing their stories on the people I listed above, members of Mylan’s board of directors, who were willing to endorse a business strategy as ethical as arms dealers in Lord of War.

Let’s cut to the chase.  Bresch is at best guilty of hyperbole and at worst lying when she was quoted on CNBC saying that, “No one’s more frustrated than me.  My frustration is, the list price is $608. ”  In 2011, the same product sold for $164.  In 2007, it was available for $57.

Does she really want the public to believe that she’s frustrated that the Food & Drug Administration has been propping up her company’s monopoly on a technology and drug that’s been in the public domain since the 1950s?  Does she love to know that her firm is pocketing $1 billion for a technology that was acquired from Merck in 2007?  Does the public know that the FDA and Congress have willfully succumbed to the pressure of corporate America by ignoring their own rights to the technology?!

Let’s take a little journey down memory lane so that Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and Mylan’s contemplable board can get on the same page!

When George Calkins and Stanley Sarnoff invented the EpiPen forbearer in 1973, they acknowledged that their ideas were improvements upon work commissioned for the U.S. and U.K. military emergency medicine needs in the 1960s!  That the U.S. Patent Office granted their patent in 1973 was, at the time, a bit of a stretch as it was more about a mechanical design improvement – not a real invention.  This technology, used in the military and in EMS kits around the world was the basis for their company.

As the U.S. government was a principal buyer of anaphylaxis injector pens and funded a considerable amount of the technical improvements thereto, the U.S. government has march-in rights to use the technology at a reasonable commercial royalty rate it can set!

The U.S. government’s EpiPens don’t cost $608 per unit.  Meridian Medical Technologies – the Department of Defense’s supplier of the actual EpiPen (owned by Pfizer) – sell the same technology dispensing numerous anaphylaxis drugs to the U.S. government for under $50 a unit.

Epinephrine, the drug in the EpiPen has been off patent for decades. It’s the dispenser — the actual injection pen — that’s covered by a patent (U.S. Patent 7,794,432) that Meridian received and then licensed to Mylan (and others).

And let’s face it, Congress knows about this. The FDA knows this. And the reason why Mylan gets away with this – just like they get away with incorporating out of the U.S. using the dubious inversion strategy for tax efficiency – is because powers that be love to provide liquidity to their benefactors!

The U.S. Patent Office and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have given Mylan license to extract excessive benefit from public that needs treatment options. Pfizer’s Meridian Medical is cruising along under the radar with a very clear statement on their website stating that their technology is “Available only for use by United States military personnel.”  And Sarah Jessica Parker is keeping the Hollywood face on the whole racket unaware that what she’s encouraging parents and school districts to do is really to enrich a dubious corporation while preying on real public fear.

Cut the crap.  This is another example of media hype around a faux well-spring of public activism around price gouging.  But let’s get real.  If we don’t want our kids to die from a bee-sting or a peanut, we should demand accountability where it’s really due – the Patent Office that granted an unjustified and unpatentable monopoly, the FDA which props up the illusion, and a board of directors at Mylan who don’t take the time to inform themselves of their own company’s misdeeds.

Commentary by David Martin, the founder of M-Cam, a global firm that advises companies and investors on corporate finance, asset allocation and valuing intellectual property. Follow him on Twitter @monkeyking67.

This commentary originally ran on InvertedAlchemy.com.  

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.

from CNBC.

Op-Ed: The real EpiPen scandal we should be talking about

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CNBC mentions both Dr. Martin and Dex Wheeler in most recent Disruptor 50 Article

Date:  Thu, 2016-06-16

Being a first-mover to disrupt a sector is big, “but the bigger thing is, these are the companies that have taken the time and effort to make sure ”” before they raise their hand to say they’ve got a business opportunity to put out there ”” they’ve ring-fenced it with some proprietary rights that make their value higher,” MCAM founder David Martin said during a recent CNBC appearance. “They’re just better companies in terms of how they’re going to last over the long haul.”

Read the entire article HERE

CNBC launches Disruptor 50 Today – Powered by M·CAM

Date:  Tue, 2016-06-07

M·CAM International provided new visibility into how nominee companies protect the technology at the foundation of their business models. Using its unprecedented database of patent, trademark and other intellectual property information, M·CAM revealed which of the 750 nominees had such protection and rated the quality of those protections. (Special thanks to Dex Wheeler at M·CAM who developed the scoring for these important criteria.)

Read the full article HERE

Anil Gupta – Keynote speaker at the 8th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship

Delivering the keynote address, Prof. Gupta stressed on the need for grass-root innovators, the need to empower them, recognize social entrepreneurs and reward them by safeguarding their interests. He talked about his idea on social entrepreneurship and the qualities of an ideal social entrepreneur – daring, innovative and focusing on the grass root levels. He pointed out that how every problem had a solution and his belief that the ability to find a way out of tight spots is something an entrepreneur should possess. In his address, Prof. Gupta also dwelt on the embedded mindsets and challenges that the social entrepreneur will face and how to tackle it.

IGNITE Awards 2015

Date:  Wed, 2015-12-09

“More than 28,000 entries were received this year of which 31 best ideas made the cut.”

Our dear friend Professor Anil Gupta, executive vice chairperson at NIF was there to check out all of the action.

Read the full article HERE

M·CAM International’s President Quoted in Cville Weekly

Date:  Wed, 2015-11-18

David Pratt – President of M·CAM International – was recently interviewed and quoted in an article for Cville Weekly

David Pratt, intellectual property expert and president of M-CAM, a local financial company, agrees. “Any kind of public backlash through social media ends up hurting the aggressor more,” he says. “Bucha and wine don’t sound the same. It’s a real stretch that people would be confused.”

Read the full article by Lisa Provence HERE