In November 2020, Viatris was formed through the combination of Mylan and Upjohn, with a mission of empowering people worldwide to live healthier at every stage of life.
Viatris’ name is rooted in Latin and embodies a vision of providing a path (“VIA”) to three (“TRIS”) critical goals: expanding access to medicines, leading by innovating to meet patient needs, and being a trusted partner for the healthcare community worldwide.
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.
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.
Mylan’s steady growth through the early 2000s was achieved through a focus on enhancing operations and developing new medicines. 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).
