The Republican National Committee is attacking vulnerable West Virginia Senate Democrat Joe Manchin for accepting donations from drugmaker Mylan, which his daughter Heather Bresch heads.
The RNC bashed Manchin Thursday after Mylan announced it was laying off 500 people at a plant in West Virginia. Manchin has taken heat before from his opponents over Mylan’s decision a few years ago to jack up the price of allergy drug EpiPen by 500 percent.
“Amidst the layoffs and scandals, Mylan has continued to contribute to Manchin’s war chest for his upcoming election,” an RNC bulletin said. “Mylan executives and employees contributed more than $50,000 to Manchin’s campaign in the first quarter of 2018.”
In September 2016, Manchin said he was proud of his daughter, who is the CEO of Mylan. He told Bloomberg that Bresch is “compassionate” and “generous,” according to a report in CNN.
He added that since Bresch has been at Mylan and he has been in politics, the two make a point of keeping those parts of their lives separate.
But the scandal over EpiPen’s pricing caused those two parts to merge in 2016. Bresch was brought in to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee over the EpiPen price spike.
The company in 2017 also agreed to pay back $465 million for misclassifying the life-saving allergy antidote on Medicaid’s rebate program. Medicaid requires drug makers that offer products under the program to give a rebate, with brand name drugmakers giving a higher rebate and generic makers a lower one. Mylan classified EpiPen as a generic drug even though it considers EpiPen a brand name product.
Manchin is considered to be one of the most vulnerable senators up for re-election in November, seeking another term in a state that President Trump won by 20 percentage points in the 2016 election.
The RNC said that it doesn’t plan to stop bringing up the link between Manchin and his daughter’s company.
“The RNC will remind voters of Manchin’s ties to Mylan, a company that employs his daughter Heather Bresch as CEO who implemented a 500 percent price hike on EpiPens that directly impacted thousands of West Virginia families,” spokeswoman Christiana Purves told the Washington Examiner.
Mylan announced this month that it is laying off 500 workers at its plant in Morgantown, W.Va.
Manchin told a local TV station last week “anytime anyone gets laid off it’s devastating. We have to help transition and make sure there are opportunities and markets for them to find good jobs.”
Manchin’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
