Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Pharma Executives Walked Into Congress Expecting A Public Flogging. They Walked Out Fairly Unscathed.
The Associated Press: Senators Draw On Own Experiences To Chastise Drug Companies
Channeling the ire of constituents and drawing from personal experience, senators chastised drug company executives Tuesday over the high cost of prescription medications, while the CEOs warned that government price controls could stifle breakthroughs on diseases like Alzheimer's. The Senate Finance Committee hearing marked the first time lawmakers have called the industry's top executives to account for rising prices, which are a drain on Medicare and Medicaid and a burden to millions of Americans. The extraordinary public accounting was a sign that Congress and the White House are moving toward legislation this year to curb costs. (Alonso-Zaldivar and Perrone, 2/26)
Reuters: U.S. Senators Tell Drug Company Executives Pricing Is 'Morally Repugnant'
Senators took aim in particular at Abbvie Inc Chief Executive Richard Gonzalez and his company's rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira - the world's top-selling prescription medicine. Executives from AstraZeneca PLC, Sanofi SA, Pfizer Inc, Merck & Co, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co also answered questions from members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. The executives pointed to their companies' records of developing lifesaving medications, saying profits generated in the lucrative U.S. market help them fund expensive research and development of future treatments. (Abutaleb and Erman, 2/26)
Bloomberg: Drugmakers Dodge A Senate Bullet, Find Some Sympathy On Pricing
Lawmakers from the Senate Finance Committee largely refrained from bashing seven senior pharmaceutical executives who came to Capitol Hill to explain why medicines cost so much. Many of the techniques the industry has used to preserve its profits from blockbuster drugs came in for criticism, but company officials were able to place much of the blame on a patchwork of incentives that culminates in high out-of-pocket costs for patients. (Annett and Edney, 2/26)
Stat: In Muted Hearing, Pharma Execs Dodge Attempts To Pin Blame For High Prices
Drug executives slipped away from most attempts to shame them for perceived bad behavior. In one case, executives directly misled the panel: All seven insisted their companies had never blocked access to drug samples for generic manufacturers. An FDA database, in fact, shows that Pfizer and AstraZeneca — as well as Celgene, a company Bristol-Myers Squibb is working to acquire — have been accused of doing so. (Facher, 2/26)
The New York Times: Drug Makers Try To Justify Prescription Prices To Senators At Hearing
Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, the home to many drug and biotechnology companies, offered what he described as “a friendly warning” to the witnesses. “If you don’t take meaningful action to reduce prescription drug prices,” he said, “policymakers are going to do it for you.” (Pear, 2/26)
Kaiser Health News: Pharma Execs Dig In For A Fight Against Outraged Senators
Outlining the problem, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s top Democrat, said that last fall 10 companies accounted for half of all profits in the health care sector, nine of them drugmakers. He pointed out that all but one of the drugmakers represented Tuesday were among the top 10 profit-makers. “Your profits are outsized compared to others in the industry, you get a massive portion of your revenue from American taxpayers, and you bear none of the consequences of high drug prices,” Wyden said. (Huetteman and Hancock, 2/26)
Politico: Friction Between Drugmakers, GOP Intensifies At Hearing On Pharma Pricing
The roughly four-hour Senate Finance Committee hearing didn't yield many fiery confrontations, and Finance Chairman Chuck Grassleyindicated he will go slow pursuing pricing legislation. But the companies took hits from Republican lawmakers like Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who accused AbbVie of abusing the patent system by obtaining 247 patents to protect its multibillion-dollar arthritis drug Humira from competition for more than 30 years. (Karlin-Smith, 2/26)
The Washington Post: Drug Executives Grilled In Senate Over High Prices
The CEOs from Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi and others were subjected to a ritualistic grilling. But the executives survived the three hours of questioning largely unscathed by deflecting blame for their list prices to insurance companies, despite an admonishment from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) that he would not stand for finger-pointing. The industry leaders they are forced to set prices higher so they can pay big rebates to insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). They acknowledged that practice especially hurts consumers without insurance, who pay full list price at the pharmacy, as well as those with coverage whose co-payment is a percentage of the list price. They insisted they are not to blame for the pain. (Rowland, 2/26)
The Hill: Senators Grill Drug Execs Over High Prices
“If you bring a drug to the market with a low list price in this system, you get punished financially and you get no uptake because everyone in the supply chain makes money as a result of a higher list price,” Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier told senators. “The system itself is complex and interdependent and no one company can unilaterally lower list prices without running into financial and operating disadvantages that make it impossible to do that.” (Hellmann, 2/26)
NPR: High Drug Prices Debated At Senate Hearing
They each acknowledged briefly that they have some role to play in helping lower drug prices. But they defended their industry by touting their multibillion-dollar investments in research and development and praising advances in treatments for cancer, hepatitis C, schizophrenia and autoimmune diseases. "Last year, Janssen invested $8.4 billion globally in research and development, making Janssen one of the top research and development investors in any industry anywhere in the world," said Jennifer Taubert, worldwide chairman of pharmaceuticals for Johnson & Johnson, which owns Janssen. (Kodjak, 2/26)
The Wall Street Journal: Analysis: CEOs From Pfizer, Merck, AbbVie And Others Face Senate On Drug Prices
Pharmaceutical executives wrapped up their appearances at the Senate drug-price hearing Tuesday by saying it would be difficult for them to cut U.S. list prices in the absence of new legislation and policy changes. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) told the executives at the end of the nearly 3 1/2-hour hearing: “If you lowered list prices it would help.” Earlier, he said list prices matter, because some patients pay either full price or a percentage that is based on the list price, rather than on net prices after rebates that manufacturers pay to middlemen. (2/26)
The Wall Street Journal: Senators Press Drug-Company Executives Over Prices
The hearing marked a milestone in Washington’s scrutiny of drug costs, with the appearance of so many powerful industry executives in itself an acknowledgment of the prospect of change. Lawmakers are gearing up for the 2020 campaign, in which health care is poised to be a central issue. “It certainly seems like it’s a new day for drug companies in Congress. How the industry handles these hearings and investigations is likely to have enormous effect on their businesses moving forward,” said Christopher Armstrong, an attorney at Holland & Knight and former general counsel and chief oversight counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, which held the hearing. (Loftus, Hopkins and Walker, 2/26)
Modern Healthcare: Pharma CEOs Survive Senate Grilling With Few Concessions
Potential congressional action on patent exclusivity did come up. In a testy exchange with AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he'd like to bring in the Senate Judiciary Committee to look at pharmaceutical patent abuses. Grassley also sits on the Judiciary panel and agreed. "I support drug companies recovering a profit based on R&D and development of innovative drugs," Cornyn said. "But at some point the exclusivity has to end." (Luthi, 2/26)
CQ: Drug Middlemen, Patents Next Target After CEOs' Testimony
Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said he was optimistic that this would be the year for drug pricing proposals to move forward. “Everybody said that they want to work with us,” Grassley told reporters after the hearing. “That’s pretty good news.” (Siddons, 2/26)
Stat: Who Shined And Who Sank: How 7 Executives Fared In Defending Pharma
Pharmaceutical executives walked into a Senate hearing on Tuesday expecting a public flogging. When it was over, they were dubbed by one Republican senator “the magnificent seven.” In other words, for phama executives, it turned out to be a pretty good day. Merck’s Ken Frazier shined, as many expected. AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Giovanni Caforio both showed how much they’ve grown into their roles as CEOs. Sanofi’s Olivier Brandicourt managed to avoid being savaged over questions about high insulin prices. (Herper and Florko, 2/26)
PBS NewsHour: Lawmakers Grill Pharmaceutical Executives Over Drug Prices, But CEOs Avoid Big Pledges
On Tuesday, executives from seven of the biggest pharmaceutical companies appeared before a Senate committee to explain their rising prices. They were questioned about R&D spending, patent extensions and their own compensation. (Yang, 2/26)
