Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions Committee, pressed executives from Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and Johnson & Johnson concerning the costs they cost for medicine within the U.S.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photos
conceal caption
toggle caption
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photos
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions Committee, pressed executives from Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck and Johnson & Johnson concerning the costs they cost for medicine within the U.S.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photos
Sparks flew on Capitol Hill Thursday because the CEOs of three drug firms confronted questions from the Senate Committee on Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions about why drug costs are a lot larger in the USA than they’re in the remainder of the world.
The executives from Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Merck spent virtually three hours in entrance of the committee going forwards and backwards about pricing practices and the way the businesses spend their cash.
“We’re all conscious of the various essential lifesaving medicine that your firms have produced,” mentioned a noticeably subdued Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont Unbiased and the committee chairman. “That’s terribly essential. However as all of you realize, these medicine do nothing for anyone who can’t afford it.”
Merck’s most cancers drug Keytruda prices $100,000 extra within the U.S. than it does in France, in response to a committee evaluation. Bristol Myers Squibb’s blood thinner Eliquis prices virtually 10 occasions extra within the U.S. than in Germany. Johnson & Johnson’s arthritis drug Stelara prices 5 occasions extra within the U.S. than it does in Japan.
Sufferers flip to GoFundMe
The executives made acquainted arguments that the U.S. pays extra for medicine but in addition will get new medicine quicker. The drugmakers additionally mentioned that middlemen referred to as pharmaceutical profit managers, or PBMs, take a giant share of the checklist costs for themselves.
“Their negotiating power has elevated dramatically,” Merck CEO Robert Davis mentioned. “In contracting with them, Merck continues to expertise growing strain to supply even bigger reductions. And the hole between checklist and internet value continues to develop, and sufferers usually are not benefiting from the steep reductions we offer.”
Nevertheless, the legislators have been ready and sometimes shot again, for example, that whereas medicine take longer to get in the marketplace in Japan and Canada, for example, that hasn’t harm these international locations’ life expectations. In reality, folks in Japan and Canada stay longer, on common, than they do in the USA.
Sanders requested Merck’s Davis if he had ever searched GoFundMe to see if anybody was making an attempt to boost cash to pay for Keytruda. He mentioned he hadn’t. Sanders mentioned his employees had.
“We’ve discovered over 500 tales of individuals making an attempt to boost funds to pay for his or her most cancers remedies,” he mentioned. “And a kind of tales is a lady named Rebecca, the varsity lunch girl from Nebraska with two children who died of most cancers after organising a GoFundMe web page as a result of she couldn’t afford to pay for Keytruda. Rebecca had raised $4,000 on her GoFundMe web page, however mentioned the price of Keytruda in a most cancers remedy was $25,000 for an infusion each three weeks.”
Drama behind the scenes
The CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson initially declined to testify. Sanders mentioned they instructed his employees they did not have the experience to speak about drug pricing.
“Merck went as far as to inform our employees that their CEO is a tax legal professional who is just not an knowledgeable on prescription drug costs,” Sanders instructed reporters on Jan. 25, calling the explanations firms supplied for declining to testify “laughable to absurd.”
The committee was about to vote on subpoenaing the CEOs once they agreed to testify voluntarily.
The commerce group PhRMA, which stands for Pharmaceutical Analysis and Producers of America, emailed a preemptive assertion Wednesday that mentioned evaluating drug costs within the U.S. to these overseas would not inform the entire story. The commerce group mentioned that new medicines launch earlier within the U.S. than in the remainder of the world, giving Individuals quicker entry. It additionally pointed the finger at different excessive well being care spending and PBMs.
“Permitting international governments to affect U.S. costs will not repair America’s well being care system,” PhRMA wrote.
Senate report paperwork drugmakers’ monetary selections
Early this week, the HELP Committee launched a report that discovered Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and Merck spend extra on govt compensation, inventory buybacks and dividends than they do on analysis and growth.
“In different phrases, these firms are spending extra to complement their very own stockholders and CEOs than they’re to find new cures and new remedies,” Sanders reiterated in his opening assertion on the listening to. “Now, the common American who hears all that is asking a quite simple query. How does all of this occur? “
The report confirmed that these firms make more cash promoting their widespread medicine within the U.S. than promoting them in the remainder of the world mixed. The report additionally discovered that whereas some drug costs climb within the U.S., they go down or keep the identical elsewhere.
