Gilead’s new CEO gets the House hearing treatment

While Daniel O’Day’s inaugural encounter with Wall Street was a little uneventful, the Gilead Sciences CEO’s first appearance before a House committee gave him a taste of life as a drug industry figurehead.

Over the course of three hours, Democratic lawmakers took O’Day to task for the cost of Gilead’s HIV-preventing Truvada, summoning witnesses who argued that the company wasn’t solely responsible for the drug and that its price was keeping it out of patients’ hands. At one point, Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings described Gilead as “the problem.”

But O’Day never seemed flustered. He insisted that Gilead spent $1.1 billion on research to come up with Truvada, with little assistance from federally funded scientists, and pointed to the company’s patient-assistance programs for those who can’t afford the drug.

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