Trump’s HHS Pick Will Divest Pharma Stock Ownership
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as HHS secretary, House Budget Committee chair Tom Price (R-GA) (see earlier story), has agreed to divest stock ownership in over 40 companies if his appointment is confirmed by the Senate. One potential divesture involves a tiny Australian biotech, Innate Immunotherapeutics, that offered Price and another congressman a sweetheart deal, according to a Kaiser Health News report. The company sold nearly $1 million in discounted shares to the lawmakers, who sit on House committees with the potential power to advance the company’s interests, the report says. They paid 18 cents a share for a stake in a company that was rapidly escalating in value, rising to more than 90 cents as the company promoted an aggressive plan to sell to a major pharmaceutical company.
Innate Immuno is seeking FDA approval for a new multiple sclerosis drug known as MIS416. Government ethics experts said this week that Price’s stake in Innate Immuno as it tries to develop a blockbuster drug would clash with his public duties, making divestiture mandatory, the report says.
His stock ownership while serving in the House creates its own appearance of a conflict of interest, ethics authorities said. “There is an appearance problem… to have members of Congress buying and selling stocks that are affected by the work of the committees they sit on,” University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter told Kaiser. “It could be perfectly legal, but it looks terrible and shows lack of judgment.”
An earlier Kaiser report found that Price has worked hard during his time in Congress to keep federal dollars flowing to his most generous campaign donors. The report said a review of the congressman’s records shows that he was a go-to representative for medical special interests who were sparring with regulators or facing federal budget cuts. “Over the past decade,” Kaiser said, “he has waded into issues related to specific drugs and medical devices, making 38 inquiries with FDA, according to federal records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. He questioned FDA on his constituents’ behalf about matters as minute as a medical device for fertility treatment and an ingredient in pain creams. In other cases, he has gone to bat for companies whose executives and employees have generously contributed to his campaigns and political action committees.”