As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. settles into his role as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, lawmakers are trying to determine just how cozy the public health firebrand will get with major drugmakers.
This week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) addressed a letter to Kennedy requesting details of recent meetings between himself, President Donald Trump and Big Pharma leaders at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Between last year’s election and Trump’s inauguration, executives such as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, as well as Stephen Ubl, CEO of the lobbying group PhRMA, held meetings with the president-elect over dinners that also served as fundraising events for the new administration, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Now, lawmakers want to know what was discussed at these “unofficial, million-dollar dinners,” and specifically, what influence those meetings might have on policy decisions — from Medicare negotiation to patent reform and political contributions.
Kennedy, who testified during his confirmation hearings that he would keep industry ties transparent and “clean up corruption” within the government’s ranks, has kept details of the dinners under wraps, saying that he attended several of them “but largely stayed quiet.”
Kennedy has long been a vocal vaccine critic, joined in efforts to sue drugmakers over alleged harm, and generally been more of a foe than a friend to the industry. But the question now is: Will access to the top echelons of public health and pharma leadership remain consistent with his confirmation promises?
Here are some of the issues the lawmakers asked to hear more about.
Medicare drug price negotiations
The price negotiation program within the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act is moving forward as planned, with the lower Medicare costs for the first 10 drugs set to take effect next year and 15 more on the docket for the year after that. While Trump has used executive orders to stymy some of the IRA’s energy provisions, Medicare price negotiation has remained untouched — so far.
But the executives meeting at Mar-a-Lago in recent months have an axe to grind with the IRA, and Lilly’s Ricks and PhRMA’s Ubl in particular have been vocal about their belief that price negotiations will hamper innovation.
Because Kennedy now leads the department with Medicare under its umbrella, attending the meetings could have implications for the future of the provisions, according to the Senators who wanted to know if drug price negotiations were discussed.
“Big Pharma stands to profit immensely from a second Trump administration, especially if they can convince you and President Trump to abandon policies like Medicare drug price negotiation and patent reform that would save Americans hundreds of billions of dollars on lifesaving drugs,” the Senators wrote in the letter to Kennedy.
During his confirmation hearing, Kennedy said he would seek to “lower prices [for] the seniors in this country,” but was less clear about the future of the negotiation provision.
Patent reform
Patent thickets and other potential abuses of the patent system have been under the congressional microscope for years, and Kennedy’s position on reform could set him up for a battle with the pharma industry.
Kennedy has reportedly said he’s open to the idea of the government seizing patents from drugmakers and making them public to lower costs, according to Politico. The tactic, called “march-in rights,” is opposed by many in the pharma industry but supported by progressive senators like Warren and Sanders, who asked whether patent reform came up at Mar-a-Lago.
The Senators made note of Kennedy’s previous support for march-in rights, although other comments have triggered concern that the executives and lobbyists could have changed that tone.
“[T]he dinners may have served as an opportunity for Big Pharma to gain insider access to both you and President Trump,” the letter said.
Industry influence
The overarching theme of the letter to Kennedy was an attempt to understand what kind of hold the pharma industry will have on the Trump administration and new head of HHS.
Beyond finding out what topics were discussed, the Senators also want to know what’s at stake. Did Trump and Kennedy make any commitments? How much did the guests pay to attend the dinners? Did the meetings result in any further payments?
The Senators set a deadline of March 24 for Kennedy to respond.
With Kennedy’s stated goals to “clean up corruption,” establish a new scientific standard and, generally, “make America healthy again,” lawmakers who originally balked at his rise to the top of HHS are now seeking a more detailed vision of what that leadership will look like in the years to come.
