Rep. Kate Porter Confronts Pharma CEO: ‘You Refined Your Skills at Price Gouging’
Freshman Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-Calif.) has made her name in Washington, D.C., with intense and successful lines of questioning during Congressional hearings and on Wednesday, Porter’s examination of a…
Freshman Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-Calif.) has made her name in Washington, D.C., with intense and successful lines of questioning during Congressional hearings and on Wednesday, Porter’s examination of a pharmaceutical CEO went viral.
Porter confronted former Celgene CEO Mark Ailes, specifically honing in on Celenge’s price hikes of revlimid, a drug used to treat cancer — the drug cost $215 per dose in 2005 and now costs $763, according to the medical news site STAT. Ailes eventually sold Celenge to Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The California congresswoman, wrote $13 million on a whiteboard, noting that was Ailes’ salary while CEO of Celenge. Porter then noted that roughly $2.1 of Ailes’ salary was a bonus for hitting “yearly-earning targets.”
She continued, “Any increase in the price of revlimid would also increase your bonus by increasing earnings. Isn’t that right, Mr. Ailes.”
Ailes responded, “If revenues increased and expenses did not, then earnings would be enhanced.”
Porter noted that “the Oversight Committee found that if you hadn’t increased the price of revlimid, then you wouldn’t have gotten your bonus.” Porter then wrote down another figure on her whiteboard and noted that Ailes received $500,000 because of the price hikes.
She added, “To recap here, the drug didn’t get any better, the cancer patients didn’t get any better. You just got better at making money. You just refined your skills at price gouging and to be clear, the taxpayers spent $3.3 billion on revlimid.”
Porter adds Ailes to the long list of CEOs that she has blasted during congressional hearings. She’s blasted the CEO of Equifax after their lawyers argued that a security breach didn’t harm anybody, and the CEO of JP Morgan Chase amid pay disparities in the company.
Porter holds a powerful seat on the House Oversight Committee that also includes freshmen Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).