Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had previously refused to hold a hearing for Monica Bertagnolli over a disagreement with the White House about lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
The standoff went on for months, but Sanders backed off in September, citing a new contract between the Department of Health and Human Services and Regeneron about COVID-19 therapeutics, as well as a pledge from the White House to keep working on ways to lower drug costs.
Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon who has led the National Cancer Institute since October, was nominated in May. The top post of NIH has been vacant since Francis Collins left the agency in December 2021. Lawrence Tabak has served as acting director ever since.
Sanders has met with Bertagnolli, but he hasn’t disclosed what they talked about.
He has previously called for specific policies from the administration, such as reinstating an NIH requirement that forces companies to sell a drug at a “reasonable” price when it’s developed with research help from the federal government, taking into consideration its production cost, public need and taxpayer investment.
Sanders also wants the federal government to exercise its “march-in rights” to seize drug patents to license them out to other manufacturers to lower their prices, something the administration has repeatedly declined to do.
On the other side of the aisle, a spokesman for HELP Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said the senator will want to hear from Bertagnolli about “her plan to address the eroded public trust in the NIH and the need to make the agency more transparent and accountable to Congress and its oversight authority.”
The spokesman said Cassidy will also discuss the need to give the committee clear answers regarding her views on the use of fetal tissue and embryonic stem cell research.
