Top execs from 7 major pharmaceutical companies told a Senate committee that they could not commit to lower the price of commonly used prescription drugs even as they admitted that they control those prices.
Win McNamee / Getty ImagesGet breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.WASHINGTON — Top executives from seven major pharmaceutical companies told a Senate committee on Tuesday they could not commit to lower the price of commonly used prescription drugs even as they admitted that they control those prices. And one executive acknowledged that the high cost of medicines hits poorest patients the hardest.
“The people who can least afford it are paying the most,” Frazier said. “That’s the biggest problem we have as a country," he said."We have a system where the poorest and the sickest are subsidizing others.”It was a rare bipartisan grilling of executives of a powerful industry who insist that prices have stabilized in 2018 and 2019. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said that it’s up to the drug companies to lower prices.
Tuesday was the first major hearing with CEOs on their pricing practices since Mylan CEO Heather Bresch was brought before the House Oversight Committee inBecause the issue affects millions of Americans, tackling rising drug prices is a politically advantageous issue for lawmakers. But to implement any legislative change, they will have to battle with a powerful industry that donates generously to political efforts and spend millions of dollars trying to influence legislation.
Some senators connected the large salaries of executives or the profitability of the company to drug costs.
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