Price, Who Owned Drug Stocks, Allegedly Pushed Australians On Policies To Benefit Drugmakers
A congressional aide tells ProPublica that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, while still in Congress in 2016 and visiting Australia, put pressure on officials there to change their position so that drugmakers could keep their data protected for 12 years instead of five.
ProPublica:
Tom Price Bought Drug Stocks. Then He Pushed Pharma’s Agenda In Australia.
In the spring before the 2016 presidential election, the Obama administration’s 12-nation trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, was still alive. ... The Australian government was getting in the way of one change demanded by U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Makers of cutting-edge biological drugs wanted to have data from their clinical trials protected from competitors for 12 years, as they are under U.S. law — not the roughly five years permitted under the TPP. ... In Canberra, Price and another Republican, Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, pressured senior Australian trade officials to modify their position on the 12-year extension, according to a congressional aide who was on the trip. ... Price’s lobbying abroad, which has not previously been reported, is another example of how his work in Congress could have benefitted his investment portfolio. He traded hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of shares in health-related companies while taking action on legislation and regulations affecting the industry. (Faturechi, 6/1)
