Merck, J&J, Bristol Myers Squibb CEOs face Senate drug price hearing

Senators are questioning the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb on U.S. drug prices at a hearing Thursday, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle work to rein in high health-care costs for Americans. 

The push to cut drug prices is one of those rare hot-button issues that unites the two major political parties, even though they often back different approaches. 

Roughly 9 million American adults did not take their drugs as prescribed in 2021 due to the high cost of medications, according to a federal survey. Prescription drug prices in the U.S. are also more than 2.5 times as high as those in other high-income nations, another federal report showed.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee says that’s especially true for some of the top drugs from J&J, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb.

The committee’s hearing includes testimony from J&J CEO Joaquin Duato, Merck CEO Robert Davis and Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner. Duato and Davis had initially declined to appear.

Ahead of the hearing, the committee noted that the three companies manufacture some of the most expensive drugs sold in the U.S.: Merck’s immunotherapy drug Keytruda, Bristol Myers Squibb’s blood thinner Eliquis, and J&J’s immunosuppressive medication Stelara. 

“The overwhelming beneficiary of these high drug prices is the pharma industry,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health panel, said during the hearing. He added that “they’re doing phenomenally well while Americans cannot afford the medicines they need.”

Sanders hopes the hearing could bear fruit for Americans, especially after Eli Lilly’s CEO promised not to raise the prices of the company’s insulin products during a similar hearing in May. 

A Merck…