Bernie Sanders opposing NIH pick until Biden delivers drug price plan

Sen. Bernie Sanders vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s pick to guide the National Institutes of Health – and every other health nominee – until the administration delivers a plan to lower prescription drug prices. 

“I’ll oppose all nominations until we now have a really clear strategy on the a part of the federal government … as to how we will lower the outrageously high cost of pharmaceuticals,” Sanders said late Monday in an interview with The Washington Post.

Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, controls when his panel reviews nominees for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Biden administration is not going to have the ability to substantiate its NIH director pick, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, or every other current or future health agency nominee without the support of the Vermont independent. 

The administration announced its intent to nominate Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon who leads the National Cancer Institute, last month. 

The White House told the Post that Biden shared Sanders’ concern on drug pricing, which is why the president signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, “probably the most consequential law addressing the high cost of pharmaceuticals.”

A provision of the act penalizes drugmakers for charging prices that rise faster than inflation for people on Medicare.

Lawmakers, researchers and advocates have repeatedly warned that drug prices within the U.S. outpace those in other nations and ultimately harm Americans who must access lifesaving treatments. 

Sanders, a frequent pharma critic, together with the committee’s Democratic majority issued a report Monday analyzing the price of pharmaceuticals that were developed with the assistance of NIH funding and research. 

The report concluded that Americans consistently pay higher prices for NIH-backed drugs compared with people in other countries.

The White House said in an announcement Monday that Biden shared Sanders’ concern on drug pricing — “which is why he signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, probably the most consequential law addressing the high cost of pharmaceuticals.”

A provision of the act penalizes drugmakers for charging prices that rise faster than inflation for people on Medicare.

The common price of recent treatments that NIH scientists helped invent over the past twenty years is $111,000, based on the report. Apart from one treatment, U.S. prices exceeded those in other G7 countries, the report added.

For instance, a drug for severe mouth sores called Kepivance costs $19,000 within the U.S., based on the report. However the treatment, developed by biotech company Sobi, only costs $5,000 in Italy.

The report also argued that federal officials are missing opportunities to be certain that pharmaceutical firms set reasonable prices for brand new medicines which can be funded partly by taxpayer support.

“The federal government also needs to stop freely giving monopolies on public inventions,” the report said. It provided examples of how health officials appear to have “handed over taxpayer technology while obtaining little in return.”