The Washington Examiner reports Jacky Rosen “reaped a windfall in profits from her investments in companies that have jacked up drug prices — all while the Democrat has touted support for lowering them.”
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Democrat Jacky Rosen sees Big Pharma investments soar while urging lower drug prices
Washington Examiner
Gabe Kaminsky
September 1, 2023
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/democrat-jacky-rosen-pharma-biotech-stock-investments
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), who faces a tough 2024 reelection bid in the swing state of Nevada, reaped a windfall in profits from her investments in companies that have jacked up drug prices — all while the Democrat has touted support for lowering them.
Rosen has described on social media how she hears from “constituents every week who are concerned about the rising cost of prescription drugs,” and has vowed to “keep fighting to lower prescription drug costs for everyone.” The Nevada Democrat, who Republicans have slammed over her campaign spending cash at luxury restaurants and hotels, disclosed in 2022 holding up to roughly $300,000 in shares of major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
News of the investments come as Rosen takes a victory lap over helping “to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices” with pharmaceutical companies through her vote in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act — a $740 billion tax, climate, and healthcare spending package President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. Prominent free market groups, including Americans for Tax Reform, have argued the “price controls” law will only initially reduce drug costs, while in the long term resulting in hiked taxes and an overly regulated system, threatening supply and manufacturing jobs.
“Senator Rosen’s complaints about drug profits rings hollow when she is padding her stock portfolio with the dividends from those same drug companies,” Tom Jones, president of the conservative American Accountability Foundation watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner. “If she was so upset with Big Pharma’s profits, she’d instruct her financial adviser to divest from those companies and put her money where her mouth is.”
Rosen’s pharmaceutical and biotechnology stocks have delivered her major dividends, while her 2022 filing lists joint holdings in eight companies that provided income of as much as $9,500, disclosures show,
The latest disclosure included Rosen’s shares worth up to $15,000 in Amgen, a drugmaker that handed the senator up to $2,500 in dividends in 2022, according to disclosures. In May, Biden’s Federal Trade Commission sued Amgen as part of an effort to purportedly fight prescription drug price hikes. And back in 2020, House Democrats released a 41-page report that took aim at Amgen for its “uninhibited price increases” for drugs, including Enbrel, which had seen its price raised over 20 times since 2002.
Other Democrats who have called for lower drug prices and invested in Amgen over the years include Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Kathy Manning (D-NC), and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). A long-time congressman, Blumenauer was at the center of calls from watchdogs for investigations in late 2022 after the Washington Examiner reported his wife bought Amgen shares before the Department of Health and Human Services, which he oversees as a member of the health subcommittee for the Ways and Means Committee, handed the company hundreds of millions of dollars for drug supplies.
“To draw off a phrase currently in vogue, this seems to embody the problem with the ‘rich men, and women, north of Richmond,'” said Pete McGinnis, spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative watchdog group, referring to the song “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony that Republicans have embraced as a working-class anthem.
In 2022, Rosen also disclosed holding up to $50,000 in shares of Gilead Sciences. The company delivered Rosen up to $1,000 in dividends that year and skirted “nearly $10 billion in U.S. taxes by the end of 2015” while raking in cash via its “overpriced HCV drugs,” according to Americans for Tax Fairness, a left-of-center group.
The senator reported pulling up to $2,500 in 2022 dividends through her holdings totaling as much as $50,000 in Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical corporation that reportedly hiked drug prices an average of 7.5% on 75 products this year. Pfizer, in which Rosen in 2022 reported holding up to $50,000 worth, while delivering her up to $2,500 in dividends that year, has sparred with Democratic lawmakers over its efforts to demand drug price negotiations, Politico reported.
“These are longstanding investments from before she was elected to Congress,” a Rosen spokesman said. “Senator Rosen has been a leader in the fight to lower prescription drug costs for hardworking Nevadans — successfully taking on drug companies to deliver historic action that finally allows Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices and cap insulin at $35 a month.”
Other major pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies that have counted Rosen as a shareholder have included Alcon, ImmuCell Corporation, and Viatris, according to disclosures. Jazz Pharmaceuticals, an Ireland-based company that the senator in 2022 reported holding up to $50,000 worth, reportedly increased prices fourfold since 2006 for its narcolepsy drug Xyrem.
Former top federal government officials told the Washington Examiner they ultimately think Democrats like Rosen are approaching drug policy in a way that will harm the public and not lower costs in the end.
“President Biden wants government-run healthcare more than he wants lower drug prices,” said Brian Harrison, ex-chief of staff for the Department of Health and Human Services under former President Donald Trump and now a GOP Texas state House member.
Ann Marie Buerkle, who was a commissioner for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission under President Barack Obama and Trump, said Democrats “ignore” pharmacy benefit managers as a private industry solution to lowering medication costs. PBMs are third-party companies acting as intermediaries between pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance providers.
A handful of Republicans are looking to take on Rosen in 2024, including Army veteran Sam Brown, ex-U.S. ambassador to Iceland Jeff Gunter, ex-Air Force lieutenant colonel Tony Grady, and former Nevada Secretary of State hopeful Jim Marchant. The Senate seat leans blue, according to the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan elections tracker.
“Ritzy Rosen has zero credibility on this issue,” Brown’s campaign manager Faith Jones told the Washington Examiner, referring to the senator’s healthcare positions. “Unlike Jacky Rosen, Sam Brown is on the side of Nevadans, not Big Pharma.”