In an open letter to his Republican counterpart on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said he will give drugmakers the committee’s protocol for guarding their potentially sensitive internal documents.
Cummings hit out at Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for rejecting the protocol and for urging drug companies not to cooperate with the committee’s ongoing investigation into drug prices, calling Jordan’s actions “a new low.”
Earlier this month, Jordan wrote to the leaders of 12 pharmaceutical companies telling them that Cummings was recklessly endangering the companies’ intellectual property and other internal documents.
Cummings says he’s pushing ahead with the pricing probe and that the committee’s Republicans have three options: They can agree to the security protocols, or work with drug companies to get information on their own, or review documents in Democratic staff offices “during regular business hours, but [they] will not be permitted to take copies of those documents.”
