The Senate Finance Committee's probe into high drug prices won't stop at pharmaceutical companies, Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, said in an interview Tuesday.
Senators will grill executives from seven drugmakers — AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer and Sanofi — in a hearing Tuesday. Grassley said there needs to be more transparency into how drug prices are set, a system which he said seems to be enveloped in "a great deal of secrecy."
"I think there is not enough information available about how prices are arrived at," Grassley said Tuesday in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box." "There seems to be a great deal of secrecy. For me, on a lot of legislative issues, particularly my oversight works, transparency brings accountability, so we need to get some transparency into it."
He wants explanations on how list prices are set for drugs and what's actually being paid for the drugs. Pharmaceutical companies negotiate discounts, called rebates, with pharmacy benefit managers. Rebates are a favorite target of the pharmaceutical industry, which blames PBMs on hoarding the savings instead of passing them onto patients.
Grassley said the committee's investigation won't stop with drugmakers and will include PBMs, as well as other players in the drug supply chain.
Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., earlier this month invited seven of the largest pharmaceutical companies to testify about drug prices. On Thursday, six CEOs and one top executive will join the committee: AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Giovanni Caforio, Johnson & Johnson's Janssen unit Executive Vice President Jennifer Taubert, Merck CEO Ken Frazier, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt.
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