Senate Finance Committee Must Press Prescription Company CEOs on Lowering Medicine Prices
Feb. 25, 2019
Senate Finance Committee Must Press Prescription Company CEOs on Lowering Medicine Prices
Experts Can Talk About the Historic Lack of Accountability Prescription Corporations Enjoy When Visiting Capitol Hill
Executives from seven of the nation’s largest and most politically influential prescription companies will testify before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.
Included as witnesses are the leaders of AbbVie Inc., AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Inc., Pfizer and Sanofi. Their appearances and testimony are pertinent because they sell some of the most exorbitantly priced medicines in the U. S. to vulnerable customers who suffer daily from the unaffordability of lifesaving medicines. Twenty-four percent of Americans say they or their family members have rationed their own medicine due to cost.
Across the nation, Americans are outraged that government inaction combined with medicine company price gouging has reduced most U.S. patients to mere extortion victims of their own health care system – often paying inflated sums for medicines their taxes already financed decades before.
Below is a list of experts who are available to speak about the destructive practices of America’s prescription industry and who can suggest some of the difficult questions U.S. senators must ask of these CEOs.
Peter Maybarduk, director, Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program, (202) 588-1000
Maybarduk can comment on the congressional action necessary to make medications affordable. He is an intellectual property expert and is available to discuss prescription pricing.
Robert Weissman, president, Public Citizen, (202) 588-1000
Weissman can talk about the effect of political donations on prescription industry pricing and marketing practices, medicines regulatory policy and corporate wrongdoing.