U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a press convention on Capitol Hill about 11 Senate Democrats who despatched a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to invoke the 14th Amendment to keep away from a catastrophic debt default, in Washington, May 18, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Sen. Bernie Sanders vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s decide to guide the National Institutes of Health – and another well being nominee – till the administration delivers a plan to decrease prescription drug costs.
“I will oppose all nominations until we have a very clear strategy on the part of the government … as to how we’re going to lower the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs,” Sanders mentioned late Monday in an interview with The Washington Post.
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Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, controls when his panel evaluations nominees for the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Biden administration won’t be able to substantiate its NIH director decide, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, or another present or future well being company nominee with out the help of the Vermont impartial.
The administration introduced its intent to appoint Bertagnolli, a most cancers surgeon who leads the National Cancer Institute, final month.
Lawmakers, researchers and advocates have repeatedly warned that drug costs within the U.S. outpace these in different nations and in the end hurt Americans who must entry life-saving remedies.
Sanders, a frequent pharma critic, together with the committee’s Democratic majority issued a report Monday analyzing the price of prescription drug costs that had been developed with the assistance of NIH funding and analysis.
The report concluded that Americans persistently pay greater costs for NIH-backed medication in contrast with folks in different nations.
The common worth of recent remedies that NIH scientists helped invent over the previous twenty years is $111,000, in keeping with the report. With the exception of 1 therapy, U.S. costs exceeded these in different G7 nations, the report added.
For instance, a drug for extreme mouth sores known as Kepivance prices $19,000 within the U.S., in keeping with the report. But the therapy, developed by biotech firm Sobi, solely prices $5,000 in Italy.
The report additionally argued that federal officers are lacking alternatives to make sure that pharmaceutical firms set affordable costs for brand new medicines which might be funded partly by taxpayer help.
“The federal government should also stop giving away monopolies on public inventions,” the report mentioned. It offered examples of how well being officers seem to have “handed over taxpayer technology while obtaining little in return.”
Source: www.cnbc.com”