Max Nisen, Columnist

Trump's HHS Pick May Not Be Totally Pharma-Friendly

Former Eli Lilly exec Alex Azar suggested he might target industry patent-gaming.

November 29, 2017 at 6:58 PM UTC

Max Nisen is a healthcare analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. He previously wrote for Bloomberg Opinion, Quartz and Business Insider.

1511981848_GettyImages-881759724 — Photographer: Tasos Katopodis

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Congressional hearings are frequently exercises in grandstanding, and high drug prices are near-universally unpopular. So it was no surprise, then, that drug pricing featured prominently in a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday for Alex Azar, President Donald Trump's nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services.

The pharma industry likely took heart when Azar, a former Eli Lilly & Co. executive, blamed the whole health-care system, rather than drugmakers alone, for high prices.