EXECUTIVE SPOTLIGHT help patients adhere to their medicines. She frequently speaks at leading industry and business conferences, including The Wall Street Journal’s Women in the Economy: An Executive Task Force conference, and has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal. She is a member of the C200—the preeminent organization of women business leaders—the National Association of Female Executives, and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association. Adele is especially proud of receiving the 2012 C200 Luminary Award for Corporate Entrepreneurship. WHAT CHALLENGES ARE LEFT? PLENTY Adele Gulfo is far from finished. In fact, she has barely taken a breath. At Mylan, she is examining not just basic treatment, but the broader area of assisting patients in improving their health and wellness. Adele is helping COPD patients to manage their condition. She tells us that “One way is by developing phone apps that monitor breathing daily, ask how patients are feeling, and provide feedback to their HCPs.” Another area of focus is diabetes. “Healthcare systems need to make sure these patients stay healthy by adhering to their course of therapy,” she notes. “It’s also in the best interests of the industry, which has had to pay $500 million in penalties for hospital readmissions within 30 days. Patients respond to positive reinforcement, and there are apps that do that, as well.”
She points out that the American Heart Association looks for companies that measure clinical data, and have metrics to prove the value of their apps. “Venture capitalists have invested $3 billion in first half of 2017 in digital health, so you know something is working there. We can’t keep blaming cost of medications for non-adherence. There’s a lot more to the equation.”
She refers to Mylan’s corporate culture as “wonderfully unconventional” in its dedication to patients. “Mylan is a cause, not just a company.” One of the things that drew her to Mylan was its focus on people. She refers to Mylan’s corporate culture as “wonderfully unconventional” in its dedication to patients. “Mylan is a cause, not just a company.” Evidence of this is that “more 40% of people globally living with HIV/AIDS who are receiving treatment depend on a Mylan product.” Mylan is also active with public policy, advocacy organizations and government, helping to provide access to treatment. SUPPORTING STEM Not surprisingly, she is also a passionate advocate for women getting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) educational opportunities and going on to work in pharma. Although
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women are 46% of the U.S. labor force, they comprise only 26% of the STEM workforce, and of course even fewer in the executive ranks. “To address this problem, intervention is required at the grade and high school levels,” Adele says. “Hands-on experience that excites and entices must spark initial interest and make a STEM education a desired pathway for female students. Having obtained their undergraduate and graduate degrees in STEM, we need young women to see female role models who have leveraged their STEM training to secure vital, powerful and influential C-suite roles. If you can’t envision it, you can’t pursue it. I know from firsthand experience, sharing my personal story with female science majors, the dramatic eye-opening impact we can offer.” The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that STEM occupations, on average, earn higher salaries and have higher employment rates than non-STEM jobs. What Adele finds more exciting is that “STEM education and job experience can be leveraged to secure corporate leadership positions and boardroom spots, where we also see a significant shortage of women.” Adele sees this effort as having wide-ranging implications for all of society, not just female STEM students or the healthcare industry. “For example, until women researchers became involved, mastectomies, not lumpectomies, were the mainstay of breast cancer treatment. Without women researchers, we would not know HIV to be the virus that causes
