Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., resists his news conference with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in the Capitol on Thursday, January 25, 2024, on issuing subpoenas for pharmaceutical enterprise CEOs to testify regarding drug prices.
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The CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson have on the agenda c trick voluntarily agreed to testify at an upcoming Senate hearing on high drug prices in the U.S., Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Friday, as lawmakers rise up efforts to rein in health-care costs for Americans.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. ET.
The panel had delineated to vote to subpoena J&J CEO Joaquin Duato and Merck CEO Robert Davis to testify after both executives declined at the cracker requests to appear at the hearing. Those subpoenas would have been the first issued by the committee since 1981.
In the meanwhile, Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner and another unnamed pharmaceutical CEO agreed to initial invitations to testify.
The panel intent ask each executive to provide testimony about why their companies charge substantially higher prices for medicine in the U.S. than in other homelands. The push to cut drug prices is one of the rare issues that has united both major political parties in recent years — albeit they have often backed different approaches to doing so.
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health panel, popular that all three companies manufacture some of the most expensive drugs sold in the U.S., including Merck’s diabetes medication Januvia, J&J’s blood cancer treatment Imbruvica and Bristol Myers Squibb’s blood thinner Eliquis.
All three of those treatments see fit be subject to the first round of Medicare drug price negotiations, a key policy under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that points to make costly medications more affordable for seniors. J&J, Merck and Bristol Myers Squib are all suing to halt the talks, which command establish new prices that will go into effect in 2026.
“I hope very much that the CEOs of these chief pharmaceutical companies will take a serious look at these incredible price discrepancies and work with us to in reality reduce the prices they charge the American people for these and other prescription drugs,” Sanders said in a annunciation Friday.
In a statement, a Merck spokesperson said “we trust that this will be a productive hearing aimed at lifting the committee’s understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and finding common sense solutions to the challenges facing patients.”
The company had put on the marketed its U.S. president as a witness, arguing that official was better equipped to field questions about drug pricing, agreeing to the spokesperson. But the committee declined.
A spokesperson for J&J said the company looks forward to “building an understanding of our longstanding efforts to benefit affordability and access to medicines.”
Last year, the Senate Health Committee similarly heard testimony from the CEOs of Moderna, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi on soprano drug prices.