{"id":931,"date":"2023-03-23T22:37:22","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T22:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=931"},"modified":"2023-03-23T22:37:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T22:37:30","slug":"sen-sanders-shows-fire-but-seeks-modest-goals-in-his-debut-drug-hearing-as-health-chair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=931","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Sanders Shows Fire, but Seeks Modest Goals, in His Debut Drug Hearing as Health Chair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\tArthur Allen<\/span><\/p>\n

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who rose to national prominence criticizing big business in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, claimed the spotlight Wednesday on what might at first seem a powerful new stage from which to advance his agenda: chairmanship of the Senate health committee.<\/p>\n

But the hearing Sanders used to excoriate a billionaire pharmaceutical executive for raising the price of a covid-19 vaccine showed the challenges the Vermont independent faces.<\/p>\n

Though its formal name is the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), the panel Sanders chairs has little if any authority over drug prices. In the Senate, most of that leverage lies with the Finance Committee, which oversees Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare.<\/p>\n

As far as drug prices go, the platform Sanders commands is essentially a bully pulpit. So Sanders was left to bully his way toward results. And while some committee Republicans sympathized with his complaints, others bristled at his approach.<\/p>\n

By the end of the hearing, seeming to acknowledge the limits of his power, the former presidential candidate was pleading with Moderna chief executive St\u00e9phane Bancel for a relatively modest concession on vaccine pricing.<\/p>\n

The CEO made no promises. Then again, pulpit proclamations can lead to corporate action, even if delayed and informal; in the weeks following President Joe Biden\u2019s State of the Union call for cheaper insulin, the companies that make it drastically cut their prices.<\/p>\n

Sanders began Wednesday\u2019s hearing with his usual fire and brimstone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll over this country people are getting sicker, and in some cases dying, because they can\u2019t afford the outrageous cost of prescription drugs, while companies make huge profits and executives become billionaires,\u201d Sanders thundered.<\/p>\n

Bancel had won his place in the witness chair with federal assistance. Moderna, which was founded in 2010 and had not brought a drug to market before the pandemic, received billions in government funds for research, guaranteed purchases, and expert advice to help develop and produce its successful covid vaccine. The payoff has been handsome. As of March 8, Bancel held $3 billion in Moderna stock. He also held options to buy millions of additional shares.<\/p>\n

Government research and support are foundational to many of the expensive drugs and vaccines in use today. But Bancel made himself the perfect foil for Sanders when he announced in January that Moderna planned to increase the price of its latest covid shot from about $26 to $110 \u2014 or as much as $130.<\/p>\n

Denouncing greed, Sanders expounded on his dream of a system in which the government fully funds drug development \u2014 and in exchange controls drug prices. \u201cIs there another model out there where, when a lifesaving drug is made, it becomes accessible to all those who need it?\u201d he asked. \u201cWhat am I missing in thinking that it\u2019s cruel to make a medicine that people can\u2019t afford?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 overt moralizing and harsh attacks on big business make him an outlier in the Senate, even in his own party. Yet distaste for soaring drug prices extends across the aisle. On the HELP Committee, at least, Republican politicians seem about evenly split between populist and pro-business takes on the problem, showing both the possibilities and the pitfalls that Sanders faces.<\/p>\n

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) expressed disgust with the lack of transparency in the health care system and called Moderna\u2019s planned price hike \u201cpreposterous.\u201d Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) called it \u201coutrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who often bucks mainstream GOP views and has expressed rancor for the biomedical establishment, claimed Bancel was downplaying vaccine injuries to make money. (Paul vastly exaggerated those risks.)<\/p>\n

Ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who has pledged to work with Sanders, responded to the chairman\u2019s opening remarks with both a hedge and a warning. \u201cI\u2019m not defending salaries or profits,\u201d Cassidy said, but he added that he hoped the hearing\u2019s goal wasn\u2019t to \u201cdemonize capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), a former private equity executive, came heartily to Bancel\u2019s defense. \u201cIf I\u2019m an investor, I have to expect that if a product I\u2019m backing works, I get to make an awful lot of money,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard people say, \u2018That\u2019s corporate greed.\u2019 Yeah, that\u2019s how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 idealized vision of the pharmaceutical industry is, in any case, moot. Even the Biden administration, which successfully browbeat insulin makers into drastically lowering prices in March, revealed this week<\/a> it would not use \u201cmarch-in\u201d rights to lower the price of a cancer drug, Xtandi, developed with government-licensed patents.<\/p>\n

March-in rights were established in the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, which enabled companies to license federally funded research and use it to develop drugs. But federal courts and administrations have consistently said the government can seize a product only if the license holder has failed to make it available \u2014 not because the price is too high. The administration did, however, announce a review<\/a> of whether price might be considered in future march-in decisions.<\/p>\n

Sanders said before the hearing that he was \u201cextremely disappointed\u201d with the Xtandi decision. But he was ultimately realist enough to aim his bully pulpit at a lower target. Late in Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Sanders pushed for a minimal gimme from Moderna. \u201cWill you reconsider your decision to quadruple the price of your vaccine to the U.S. government and its agents?\u201d he asked politely.<\/p>\n

Bancel dodged, saying pricing was more complex now that Moderna faced an uncertain market, had to fill separate syringes with its vaccine, and needed to sell and distribute the vaccine to thousands of pharmacies, where previously the government did all that work. Later, he left open the possibility that negotiations could drive down the price paid by some government agencies or private insurers.<\/p>\n

For all the theatrics of such hearings and the mix of opinions among the senators, interrogations of figures like Bancel may help inspire a shift in how the National Institutes of Health \u201cdoes business in giving away its science to the private sector,\u201d said Tahir Amin, co-executive director of I-MAK, a nonprofit that advocates for equitable access to medicines.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to prosecute it so you at least get these public comments on record,\u201d Amin said. Eventually, he said, this type of hearing could lead to a recognition that, \u2018Hey, we need to do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the HELP Committee\u2019s lack of direct jurisdiction over drug prices, said John McDonough, a Harvard professor who was senior adviser for health reform on the HELP Committee from 2008 to 2010, Sanders \u201cuses his position of authority and influence to draw attention to this in a way that has been helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

KHN correspondent Rachana Pradhan contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

KHN<\/a> (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF<\/a> (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

This story can be republished for free (details<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arthur Allen Sen. Bernie Sanders, who rose to national prominence criticizing big business in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, claimed the spotlight Wednesday on what might at first seem a powerful new stage from which to advance his agenda: chairmanship of the Senate health committee. But the hearing Sanders used to excoriate a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pharmaceuticals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":933,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}