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Mylan N.V.

Mylan makes and sells generic prescription medicines and a few branded specialty drugs worldwide.

Mylan is a drug company that mostly sells copies of medicines whose original patents have expired. These are called generics, and they sell for a fraction of the price of the brand-name version. Mylan's customers are not regular shoppers — they are pharmacies, hospitals, wholesalers, and governments, who buy in bulk and then hand the pills to patients. The company also runs a smaller branded and specialty business, including emergency allergy shots and other niche treatments. The vast majority of revenue, though, comes from generics, where Mylan is one of the largest players in the world.

Think of it as a factory that makes the same medicine everyone else can make, but wins by being cheaper and bigger than the next factory. That is a tough game, because when many companies make the same pill, the price can fall to almost nothing. Mylan has tried to escape that pressure by getting large, buying rivals like the injectable-drugs business of Stada and parts of Abbott's generics portfolio, and by pushing into complex products that are harder to copy, such as inhalers and injectables. Mylan was founded in the United States in 1961 as a tiny drug distributor, grew through decades of deals, and in 2015 moved its legal headquarters to the Netherlands in a controversial move called a tax inversion. It later redomiciled to the United Kingdom. In 2020, Mylan merged with Pfizer's off-patent drug unit Upjohn to form a new company called Viatris, which is why Mylan N.V. shares no longer trade today.

Saved answer · last researched 11 Oct 2026