WASHINGTON, D.C. — As rising drug prices are top of voters’ minds in the midterm elections, Patients For Affordable Drugs Action launched a 7-figure campaign to warn New Jersey voters: Big Pharma CEO Bob Hugin made over $100 million by raising drug prices so high that cancer patients were forced into debt just to stay alive.

The new bipartisan super PAC will engage in advertising and direct voter engagement to tell New Jersey voters how Bob Hugin exploited cancer patients. Hugin made more than $100 million by doubling the price of a lifesaving cancer drug, forcing some families to take out home loans just to stay alive. The bipartisan group is also announcing its effort in support of a Republican in West Virginia today.

“Big Pharma CEO Bob Hugin spent his career profiting off of cancer patients,” said David Mitchell, a cancer patient and the founder of Patients For Affordable Drugs Action who took one of Hugin’s drugs for five years. “He raised drug prices so high that some patients were forced into debt just to stay alive, and he walked away with well over $100 million. We intend to do everything in our power to make sure New Jersey voters know how Bob Hugin’s unscrupulous and exploitative business practices hurt patients.”

Starting on July 13, the new bipartisan super PAC, Patients For Affordable Drugs Action, will begin airing its first television ad, The Guy Who Made A Killing, explaining how Bob Hugin got rich on the backs of cancer patients. The ad will run for several weeks in New Jersey. The initial TV spend is around $1.5 million, and it will be supplemented with digital paid media, social and earned media.

As a drug company CEO, Hugin doubled the price of Revlimid, a drug some cancer patients need to survive. While the drug only cost around $1 to make, Hugin’s company charged more than $600 per capsule. In addition, Hugin blocked cheaper generic alternatives from coming to market and led the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying efforts to oppose laws to ensure competition and lower prices. His actions led Congress to advance bipartisan legislation to outlaw the type of tactics employed by Hugin.

In addition to its work in New Jersey, the group plans to spend millions more in campaigns across the country in 2018 to defeat politicians who are in the pockets of Big Pharma and to help elect candidates who will stand up for patients and fight for lower drug prices. The first two races announced are in support of David McKinley (R-WV), who has championed legislation to lower drug prices, and in opposition to Bob Hugin. Unlike Hugin, David McKinley has fought for patients and stood up to drug corporations that employ dirty tactics to keep prices high.

Patients For Affordable Drugs Action is a political action committee founded to make sure politicians hear from real patients and not just the pharmaceutical political machine. In 2017, Big Pharma spent $25.4 million lobbying, and in the last election cycle donated $247 million to help elect politicians. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action received principal funding from the Action Now Initiative, a political advocacy organization founded by Laura and John Arnold. Patients For Affordable Drugs Action is an independent organization and refuses funding from any organization that profits from the development or distribution of prescription drugs.

TRANSCRIPT: 

Pam Holt, Cancer Survivor: 

This is the drug that keeps me alive. The price to make one capsule?

Less than a dollar.

The price the drug company charges: over six hundred dollars.

Why? Ask Bob Hugin.

He was the CEO of the drug company that doubled the price on us…while he made a hundred million dollars.

Now he wants to be your Senator.

But I’ll always know him as the guy who made a killing…

Off cancer patients like me.

Anncr: Patients for Affordable Drugs Action is responsible for the content of this ad.

Click here to view the ad.