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These Senators Received The Biggest Checks From Pharma Companies Testifying Tuesday

This article is more than 5 years old.

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Executives from seven of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical companies are expected to face tough questions from members of the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday about drug prices, which have raised the ire of President Trump and the specter of Congressional restrictions. The pharma chiefs will also be facing a familiar crowd: Members of the Senate Finance Committee have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the same firms’ political action committees, and in some cases, the executives personally.

According to a Forbes review of Federal Election Commission filings from 2009 through the end of 2018, PACs of AbbVie , AstraZeneca , Bristol-Myers Squibb , Johnson & Johnson , Merck, Pfizer and Sanofi the seven companies set to appear before the Senate Finance Committee—have contributed some $1.6 million to the campaign committees of 27 out of 28 current members of the Finance Committee. (Forbes looked at donations made over the last decade to encompass at least one election cycle per senator.)

A large chunk of that $1.6 million has gone toward the campaign committees of six senators, who have received $100,000 or more from those seven companies’ PACs in the last decade. The campaign committee for Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania who ran for reelection in 2018, received the most in that time span: $121,500. (Merck and Sanofi both have corporate campuses in Pennsylvania.)

Others senators who received at least $100,000 from the pharma PACs include:

  • Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) - $119,000
  • Rob Portman (R-Ohio) - $113,000
  • Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) - $107,000
  • Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) - $101,000
  • Tom Carper (D-Delaware) - $100,000

Spokeswomen for Senator Portman and Senator Carper, when asked for comment on the contributions, both wrote via email that Portman and Carper have helped lead efforts to reduce the cost of drugs. Last year the pair worked together to lower the price of a naloxone spray made by drug firm Kaléo, which can be used to treat opioid overdoses, from $4,100 per unit to $178. The other four senators did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Committee chairman Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who called on the seven companies to testify at the hearing, has also received contributions from these companies over the years. Since 2009 his campaign committee was given $45,000 from that group of seven. A spokesman for Grassley told Forbes via email that “political donations have no bearing on how Chairman Grassley runs the Finance Committee.” Grassley will “demand accountability and act in the interest of taxpayers,” he said. (The campaign committee of ranking member Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon who participated in the tobacco hearings in the 1990s, has received $78,500 from these PACs since 2009.)

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

In the hearings, which some including Senator Wyden have compared to the televised testimony of big tobacco companies which foreshadowed tighter regulations over tobacco, or to the social media hearings from last year, the pharma executives are expected to be asked to explain price tags that can total as much as a worker’s salary. For example, according to a press release from Senator Grassley’s office, Sanofi’s insulin has risen in cost by 77% since 2013 to $431. Meanwhile AbbVie’s psoriasis/Crohn’s disease/rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira (list price: $38,000 per year) has fended off cheaper generic competition for over 20 years. Still, pharmaceutical companies have often explained the high cost of their drugs by pointing to the large investment in R&D required to develop new drugs or to the rebate system run by pharmacy benefit managers. It’s a hearing Patients For Affordable Drugs founder and multiple myeloma patient David Mitchell says is “long overdue.”

The call for drug pricing reform has become a bipartisan issue, and the pharma PACs have similarly donated to both sides of the aisle, according to the FEC filings. The 15 Republican members’ campaign committees took in over $1 million of contributions from the seven companies since 2009, while 13 Democrats took in almost $600,000 in the same time frame. There were no donations to Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, in the FEC database from any of the companies set to appear Tuesday.

These donations make up only a small percentage of the total contributions pharmaceutical company PACs spend on elections. In 2017 and 2018 alone, Pfizer contributed over $2 million to federal election campaigns--Merck and Abbvie both spent nearly $1.2 million.

Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb say that their company’s PACs support politicians from both parties. BMS and J&J both noted that their PACs are supported by voluntary contributions from their employees.

Beyond the company PACs, a few of the CEOs testifying Tuesday have made individual contributions to some of the senators who sit on the finance committee. Merck CEO Ken Frazier has spent some $90,000 on federal election campaign contributions in the last decade, $40,000 of which has gone toward current members of the finance committee. In the last six months he donated $5,000 to the campaign committees of Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, and $3,900 to Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware. Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt spent over $8,000 contributing to the 2018 campaigns of Tom Carper and Mark Warner, too.

New Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla contributed $2,700 each to Senator Portman’s campaign committee and to the campaign committee of Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania. Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Giovanni Caforio contributed $7,500 to last year’s campaigns of Senator Carper and Senator Crapo.

This likely won’t be the last time pharma CEOs are asked to testify before Congress this year. On Friday Senator Grassley launched a separate investigation specifically focused on insulin pricing.

“The reality is that drug pricing is a national problem. That’s a problem for hospital care and for individuals who can’t get medication. So it’s kind of scandalous,” says Ann Ravel, former Democratic Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission. “So even the most money that these people are being given by the companies might not be enough to sway the politicians.”

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