Grassley Opens Judiciary Markup on Bipartisan Prescription Drug Pricing Bills

Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa

Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee

Executive Business Meeting

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Good morning, everyone.

Today we have one nomination and six bills on the agenda.

Patrick Davis, who has been nominated to be an Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department, is on the agenda for the first time, so he'll be held over.

The six bills on the agenda are ripe for consideration.

Today's markup is about addressing the high cost of prescription drugs and the abusive practices that keep prices high for too many American families.

These bills aren't new. In fact, we voice voted them out of committee in February 2023.

But we're back here today, since the Democratic leader refused to bring them up in the Senate last year.

So, we're taking another shot at making sure consumers aren't being taken advantage of by anti-competitive practices, which stop cheaper generics from reaching the market in a timely fashion.

It's time to make the system work better for the people who need it most: the patients and consumers who can't afford to keep paying sky-high prices for their prescription drugs.

The bills we're discussing today are designed to directly tackle these issues.

Among other things, we want to end pay-for-delay deals. Right now, some brand-name drug manufacturers pay generic companies to keep cheaper options off the market. That's got to stop.

We also want to fix abusive patent practices and strengthen agency collaboration.

Not only do we want to encourage agencies such as the USPTO and FDA to coordinate better on patents, we want to prevent companies from gaming the system through product hopping and patent thickets.

Further, we want to curb the use of sham citizens petitions. This will make it easier for generics to obtain approval and get to market quicker, lowering costs for everyone.

Finally, we want to commit the FTC to finish the work it's started in studying the impact of PBMs on competition.

Understanding the PBM industry and collecting data will shore up marketplace transparency and help us address concerns about abusive PBM practices.

These bills won't just help level the playing field for smaller companies; they'll help make prescription drugs more affordable for the people who need them.

At the end of the day, this is all about the people we represent.

For too long, consumers have been at the mercy of drug companies that can keep prices high by blocking competition and abusing the system. The bills we're looking at today will be a good step at changing that.

It'll be a win for families, for taxpayers and for anyone who believes that a competitive market leads to better prices.

I'm looking forward to working with everyone on these bills.

Now, a procedural commentary, not of this committee, but a procedural commentary about the United States Senate and prescription drug bills.

I've spoken about how these bills have been on this committee's agenda before, and voted out in a non-controversial way, or almost in a consensus way.

These bills have never been brought up on the Senate floor - if they have, they didn't get to be law.

Secondly, we have pharmacy benefit manager legislation, not out of this committee, except for the one I spoke about that's an FTC study, but out of three other committees in the United States Senate in the last Congress, and at least one bill out of the House Committee.

Now, these bills aren't exactly the same out of these three committees in the Senate, but they tried to accomplish the same thing, of making PBMs operation in the pricing of our drugs more transparent, hopefully transparency [will] drive down the cost of prescription drugs.

Now, they collectively have about 65 or 70 Senators cosponsoring them, and that goes back two years.

All three of these bills have not been introduced yet in this Congress, but the Cantwell-Grassley bill out of Commerce has been reintroduced.

I can't understand why, when we hear from all of our constituents at our town meetings, or in an email, or in a phone call, about people wanting us to take legislation up that will get prescription drug prices down, it doesn't seem to come up in the United States Senate.

Everybody is concerned about the issue.

I think part of the problem is that, through the last four years... the Senate's only meeting about two-and-a-half days a week.

Now this week is an exception, because we got to take up the budget.

But, what's wrong with the Senate meeting five days a week, so we can get some of this legislation [passed], and be more than just a confirming body for members of the executive branch of government.

And I think we all ought to think about how much we hear about our constituents complaining about prescription drugs.

We have bills with two-thirds of the Senate being sponsors, [that can help] solve that problem, [but] we can't get this done.

When I came to the United States Senate, we used to start at ten on Monday and go to four on Friday.

Now, we start at 5:30 on Monday, work Tuesday, Wednesday and if this was a normal Thursday, but I explained it's not because we're taking the budget up, but most Thursdays this Senate stops at two in the afternoon on Thursday.

There's enough work for senators to work seven days a week if they want to on an individual basis.

But we can't solve this country's problems if we don't get together more than two-and-a-half days a week to get business done.

So, I hope somebody will take what I said to heart. And if they do, something might get done and if they don't, we'll continue working two-and-a-half days a week.

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