US Congress Committee pressures Valeant to produce drug pricing documents
pharmafile | March 11, 2016 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Drug pricing, Michael Pearson, Valeant
Valeant’s tough month continued yesterday, with a US congressional committee pressuring the company to explain why it has not produced documents related to its investigation into the company’s drug pricing practices.
The House Oversight Committee published a letter yesterday sent to Valeant chief executive Michael Pearson, in which it reminded the recently-returned boss that in January it had asked the company to produce documents relating to the price increases on heart drugs Isuprel and Nitropress. The letter says the company responded in early February, claiming it had “produced all the nonprivileged documents that it has identified as responsive” to these requests.
However, the documents Valeant produced at this time did not satisfy the committee, which again replied to Valeant, asking the company to explain why some documents requested were withheld. Pearson’s counsel in turn said that he chose to withhold documents “covered by attorney-client privilege or work product privilege.”
The Committee is now demanding the Valeant provides a detailed log of the documents it is choosing to withhold, by March 23rd. This log should include a description of each document and the number of pages, as well as Valeant’s reason for withholding the document, the letter, signed by Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Raking Member Elijah Cummings, said.
Valeant responded in a statement yesterday, company lawyer Robert Kelner from Covington & Burling, saying: “We are surprised and puzzled by the committee’s statement given that we have produced more than 78,000 pages of documents. As is standard procedure for any company responding to a congressional investigation and engaged in litigation, we have declined to produce documents covered by the attorney-client privilege, and we are preparing a log for the committee detailing what documents are being withheld under that privilege. We have co-operated with the committee’s review from the beginning and look forward to providing them with that log, pursuant to their request.”
The Oversight Committee questioned executives from Valeant and other pharma companies at a hearing last month into the spiralling cost of prescription medicines in the US. As Pearson was away on medical leave at the time, interim chief executive Howard Schiller answered on his behalf.
It has been a turbulent few months for Valeant, with the drug pricing issue and the speciality pharmacy scandal contributing to a decline of some 75% in the company’s share price since its August 2015 peak.
Joel Levy
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