New Brunswick, NJ – The Menendez for Senate Campaign today released a new television ad featuring a New Jersey Air Force veteran and Teamster with multiple myeloma who nearly lost his home, his wife—everything—to pay for lifesaving cancer medication for which greedy drug company CEO Bob Hugin spiked the price by more than 200%, including three separate hikes in 2017 alone.
“The high cost of prescription drugs is crippling patients and forcing families to make difficult financial choices to stay alive. Mark Wilson is just one of them,” said Menendez Campaign Communications Director Steve Sandberg. “How many cancer patients went hungry, missed a mortgage payment, or had to file for bankruptcy just so Bob Hugin could afford to buy a third mansion or a new yacht? While Bob Menendez has been fighting in Washington to rein in the high cost of prescription drugs and make health care more accessible and affordable for everyone, Bob Hugin cold-heartedly and callously took advantage of the sick and most vulnerable to get rich. Bob Hugin should apologize to each and every cancer patient and family he put in financial ruin just so they could stay alive.”
TRANSCRIPT:
Mr. Wilson: Now when medication becomes, the cost of medication becomes the issue of whether you live or die, it’s really a sad thing.
I called my girls in, because I told them, you know, I didn’t want to go on living anymore and it was really a decision that… it’s hard to make.
It’s, it’s scary yet, reality.
Bob Menendez: “I’m Bob Menendez and I approve this message.”
Sen. Menendez recently visited with Mark and Donna Wilson at their South Jersey home. Mark, who worked for years as a professional truck driver following his service in the U.S. Air Force, was prescribed Revlimid, the cancer drug made by Hugin’s company Celgene, after he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
A tumor on his spine paralyzed Mark until it could be removed, but left him no longer able to work. Covering the cost of Mark’s expensive treatment is a monthly struggle. The couple is living paycheck to paycheck, was forced to seek a mortgage modification when they nearly lost their home, and they even considered divorce at one point so Mark could independently qualify for Medicaid coverage.
As the head of Celgene, Hugin arbitrarily hiked the price of the pharmaceutical giant’s most successful cancer drug three times in one year, while simultaneously giving cancer patients in Russia a 45% discount on the same drug. During the same period, Hugin personally made $48 million over his last 15 months at Celgene. In defending his pricing decisions, Hugin admitted to price gouging American cancer patients, telling the Press of AC, “… if [a drug] becomes more effective and more valuable, then more value should be accrued to the drug.”
The Trump FDA has also cited Celgene, during Hugin’s reign, as the #1 offender in blocking the manufacturing of lower-cost generics, manipulating the market and artificially increasing demand for their drug. Hugin and Celgene also spent millions lobbying Congress to torpedo legislation that would have made it easier for generics to come to market, giving patients lower-cost alternatives to Celgene’s high-priced drugs.
Hugin and Celgene defrauded Medicare, promoted two of its most successful drugs off-label for uses not approved by the FDA, misled doctors and patients about the drugs’ effectiveness and side-effects, and orchestrated a kickback scheme in which physicians were paid to prescribe the drugs, according to a federal whistleblower lawsuit initiated by a senior member of Celgene’s sales team and brought by the U.S. Dept. of Justice, 28 states—including New Jersey—and the District of Columbia. After five years of slow-walking the case in federal court, Celgene agreed to pay $280 million to avoid trial only after Bob Hugin gave a videotaped, sworn deposition, and then had the record sealed.
As a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees national health policy, Bob Menendez co-authored the Affordable Care Act, which gave nearly one million more New Jerseyans access to health care who didn’t have coverage before, protected 3.8 million with pre-existing conditions, and led to the expansion of federally qualified community health centers across the state and country. He supports legislation, like the CREATES Act—which Hugin and Celgene spent millions to lobby against—and the SPIKE Act, that would drive down the cost of prescription drugs. The Senator authored the Autism CARES Act, successfully pushed for a 10-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and brought tens of millions in federal resources to New Jersey to tackle the opioid crisis.
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