Will an up­com­ing Sen­ate hear­ing help low­er drug prices? It de­pends who you ask

Days be­fore three phar­ma CEOs are set to tes­ti­fy be­fore the Sen­ate on high pre­scrip­tion drug prices, mem­bers of the Com­mit­tee on Health, Ed­u­ca­tion, La­bor, and Pen­sions (HELP) are de­bat­ing whether an­oth­er such hear­ing will have a ma­jor im­pact on the de­bate.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) re­leased a new re­port on Tues­day crit­i­ciz­ing “cor­po­rate greed” in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try, at­tack­ing high launch prices, drug­mak­ers’ lob­by­ing ef­forts and “ex­or­bi­tant com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages” for chief ex­ec­u­tives. In the ma­jor­i­ty staff re­port, HELP mem­bers said Keytru­da’s 2022 sales alone came $2 bil­lion shy of Mc­Don­ald’s glob­al rev­enue that year and sur­passed sales from the ho­tel chain Mar­riott.

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