A senator compared a drug manufacturer to Gollum during a hearing on rising drug prices

Executives from seven of the world's top drug manufacturers — Merck, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, Sanofi, and Bristol-Myers Squibb — gathered in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to face questioning from the Senate Finance Committee about rising drug prices.

In front of larger-than-normal crowds for a public hearing on Capitol Hill, the bipartisan committee grilled the executives. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), for example, singled out AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez for his company's decision to double the price of Humira, an arthritis medicine, from $18,000 to $39,000 for a 12-month supply.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.