US Senator Bernie Sanders, Unbiased of Vermont, speaks throughout a rally by the Folks’s Motion, protesting pharmaceutical firms’ lobbying towards permitting Medicare to barter decrease prescription drug costs, exterior Pharmaceutical Analysis and Producers of America (PhRMA) headquarters in Washington, DC, September 21, 2021.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Photos
The CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson have voluntarily agreed to testify at an upcoming Senate listening to on excessive drug costs within the U.S., Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced Friday, as lawmakers ramp up efforts to rein in health-care prices for Individuals.
The Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee’s listening to is scheduled for Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. ET.
The panel had deliberate to vote to subpoena J&J CEO Joaquin Duato and Merck CEO Robert Davis to testify after each executives declined earlier requests to look on the listening to. These subpoenas would have been the primary issued by the committee since 1981.
In the meantime, Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner and one other unnamed pharmaceutical CEO agreed to preliminary invites to testify.
The panel will ask every govt to offer testimony about why their firms cost considerably greater costs for drugs within the U.S. than in different international locations. The push to chop drug costs is without doubt one of the uncommon points that has united each main political events lately — although they’ve typically backed totally different approaches to doing so.
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Well being panel, famous that every one three firms manufacture among the most costly medicine bought within the U.S., together with Merck’s diabetes drug Januvia, J&J’s blood most cancers remedy Imbruvica and Bristol Myers Squibb’s blood thinner Eliquis.
All three of these remedies shall be topic to the primary spherical of Medicare drug value negotiations, a key coverage underneath President Joe Biden’s Inflation Discount Act that goals to make pricey medicines extra reasonably priced for seniors. J&J, Merck and Bristol Myers Squib are all suing to halt the talks, which is able to set up new costs that can go into impact in 2026.
“I hope very much that the CEOs of these major pharmaceutical companies will take a serious look at these incredible price discrepancies and work with us to substantially reduce the prices they charge the American people for these and other prescription drugs,” Sanders mentioned in a press release Friday.
In a press release, a Merck spokesperson mentioned “we trust that this will be a productive hearing aimed at enhancing the committee’s understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and finding common sense solutions to the challenges facing patients.”
The corporate had supplied its U.S. president as a witness, arguing that official was higher outfitted to subject questions on drug pricing, in response to the spokesperson. However the committee declined.
A spokesperson for J&J mentioned the corporate appears to be like ahead to “building an understanding of our longstanding efforts to improve affordability and access to medicines.”
Final 12 months, the Senate Well being Committee equally heard testimony from the CEOs of Moderna, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi on excessive drug costs.