Senator Bernie Sanders is preparing to grill the CEOs of three major pharmaceutical companies.
On Thursday, Joaquin Duato of Johnson & Johnson, Robert Davis of Merck, and Chris Boerner of Bristol Myers Squibb will testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee over why the U.S. pays the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
“Whether you’re Democrat, Republican, independent, conservative, progressive, you know that the pharmaceutical industry is ripping us off,” Sanders, an independent from Vermont, says.
The HELP majority staff released a report on Tuesday that revealed that the median launch price of innovative prescription drugs sold by Johnson & Johnson, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck have increased by more than $220,000 from $14,000 in the years 2004-2008 to $238,000 in the past five years. The report also found that Johnson & Johnson and Bristol Myers Squibb spent more…
