Mr. Jørgensen goes to Washington

The Democrats who run the House of Representatives have an oft-stated interest in drug prices, which probably means you can expect to see pharma CEOs dragged before congressional committees in the months to come. So, yesterday, we asked readers: Who’s most likely to get the summons first?

The winner, with 30 percent of the vote, was Lars Jørgensen, whose Novo Nordisk has presided over umpteen increases to the list price of insulin. Fractionally behind him was PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl, whose literal job is to speak for the industry in Washington, followed by Pfizer CEO Ian Read with 24 percent of the vote and Mylan’s Heather Bresch with 16 percent.

The closeness of the vote is perhaps telling of the state of the industry in 2019. Martin Shkreli is in federal prison, and it’s been months since the last public outrage over a single product. Instead, the conversation around the cost of drugs has focused on the metronomic single-digit price increases that have long since become standard procedure in pharma. That makes for a more nuanced discussion, but it also makes it hard to pick a witness.