The following article by Justin Glawe was posted on the Daily Beast website April 17 2018:
Rep. Chris Collins sponsored legislation beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry, and especially the company where he’s a director. Why won’t the House investigate?
Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) has sponsored several bills that would have benefited a drug company in which he is the lead shareholder, a Daily Beast investigation has found.
Collins is also trying to make changes to a government program that would save the company millions of dollars if its drug is approved by the FDA.
Collins’s office says he doesn’t believe his bills represent a conflict of interest, but he is already accused by independent Office of Congressional Ethics of violating House ethics rules and U.S. securities law for his dealings with the drug company.
The Daily Beast found at least four bills that Collins drafted or sponsored that would have directly affected the drug company, Innate Immunotherapeutics:
- A 2013 bill that would have appropriated more money to an NIH grant program from which Innate previously received $300,000.
- A 2016 bill that made it easier for drug companies to be granted FDA status to begin drug trials, which Innate received last year.
- A 2017 bill that would allow drug companies to use a new research method in clinical trials, which Innate would have benefitted from.
- A 2017 draft bill that would have changed the 340B drug discount program to exclude patients who need expensive “infusion” drugs like Innate’s.
The House Ethics Committee was told to investigate Collins by the Office of Congressional Ethics over his dealings with Innate, but the committee has yet to begin a formal investigation. The bills that would have affected Innate should prompt the committee to immediately begin its investigation, said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a non-profit government watchdog.
“I am baffled as to the type of reasoning that the ethics committee came up with in declining to dismiss but not formally start their investigation, other than that it is a partisan deadlock: The Democrats want to pursue the investigation and the Republicans are stonewalling it,” said Holman, who has previously filed complaints regarding Collins’s conduct with the committee and the Securities and Exchange Commission.