In land­mark hear­ing, drug­mak­ers and law­mak­ers agree that US pol­i­cy on drug pric­ing is ripe for change — but there's no con­sen­sus on much else

Sev­en big phar­ma ex­ec­u­tives faced a pla­toon of US sen­a­tors on Tues­day, ex­pect­ing a dress­ing down on the in­dus­try’s track record of re­lent­less price hikes that has sparked bi­par­ti­san furor — but were in­stead treat­ed to a con­sci­en­tious de­bate, high on con­cern and low on con­tention.

Mat­ters kicked off with Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden ad­mon­ish­ing every bio­phar­ma rep­re­sen­ta­tive for their com­pa­ny’s tac­tics, in­clud­ing Ab­b­Vie pro­tect­ing its $18-bil­lion-a-year Hu­mi­ra from gener­ics like “Gol­lum with his ring,” and Pfiz­er for mak­ing the “emp­ti­est pric­ing ges­ture” by press­ing pause on hikes un­der pres­sure from Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump for a pe­ri­od on­ly to re­sume lat­er.

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