U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is asking the Army not to grant exclusive marketing rights to Sanofi, a Zika vaccine, to a French-based pharmaceutical company.
Sanders says the government has invested more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars for research and development of the drug.
In a letter to acting Army Secretary Robert Speer, Sanders decried the sale of Sanofi to a private company.
“This means American consumers could pay twice: Once for the development of this vaccine through their tax dollars and then to the company, which would be allowed to charge any price that it wants for this drug if and when it is approved for marketing,” Sanders wrote. “This could add significantly to the outrageous drug prices that the American people, Medicare, Medicaid and the U.S. military are already paying.”
In an op-ed published in the New York Times, Sanders said the Trump administration must stop the sale.
“If Mr. Trump allows this deal, Sanofi will be able to charge whatever astronomical price it wants for its vaccine,” Sanders wrote. “Before President Trump makes this deal, he must guarantee that Sanofi will not turn around and gouge American consumers.”
The government has supported research for treatments to lessen the risk to babies who can contract the Zika virus in utero. The disease, which is spread by mosquitos shrinks babies’ brains and causes other birth defects.
Sanders said this isn’t the first time taxpayers have paid twice for a drug. The prostate cancer drug Xtandi was developed at UCLA with government research grants and support from the Army and the National Institutes of Health. UCLA licensed the drug to a small biotech company in San Francisco. Pfizer Inc. paid $14 billion to acquire that company last year. Now the drug costs $129,000 for a one-year treatment. In Canada, the same drug costs $30,000.
“Our government must stop being pushovers for the pharmaceutical industry and its 1,400 lobbyists. We must not hand this gift to a French drug company without making it pledge not to overcharge American consumers,” Sanders wrote.
