McCaskill Shines Spotlight on State of Nation's Biodefense

Press Release

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today scrutinized the effectiveness and efficiency of the country's biodefense stockpile at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the state of the nation's biodefense.

"This [private sector drug development program] was the taxpayers' baby," said McCaskill, a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee. "Then we have to turn around and buy it from them for $3,000 a dose. Most people in Missouri don't understand that. Why we would pay for the development of the drug, and then have to pay $3,000 a pop for the drug after we paid to develop it? …we're paying them to develop the drug, and then we're the only customer, and it seems to me that we're guaranteeing a profit for something that is wholly owned by the government."

McCaskill continued: "I'm involved in this other investigation where a guy named Martin Shkreli figured out that there was a limited market for a certain drug, and he went out and bought it and then jacked the price up. So maybe we need to take a page out of his book and jack the price down. Maybe we figure out what the price is to buy the drug that we pay to develop, and continue to manufacture it ourselves and drive the cost way down--because now we're taking out the profit that the private company is making from our investment. Believe me, I don't quarrel with a private company being able to make money off their investment. But it seems weird that we're making the investment and then they profit off theirs for the life of the company. That's the kind of deal that any businessman would like to get."

In 2013, McCaskill grilled government officials on questionable spending used to research and develop a tool for combatting bio-terrorism. At the hearing, the Undersecretary for Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security agreed that the program "has not gotten sufficient Congressional attention and oversight."

At today's hearing McCaskill also questioned the distribution of biodefense funds, saying: "I'm frustrated with… what we are warehousing and why, and what we're spending money on. If you look at the funding decisions and the priorities and the tradeoffs, we've spent $1.4 billion on anthrax countermeasures alone. Two of the investments were for anthrax anti-toxins that cost $3,100 and $8,200 dollars per dose."

At a 2014 hearing on the Ebola outbreak, McCaskill raised similar questions about whether the federal government has properly prioritized resources for the federal BioShield program to develop preparedness countermeasures to guard against public health threats.

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