California Rep. Gil Cisneros advocated for lowering the prices of prescription drugs. But financial records show he profited from companies that hiked the price of different medications.
Although the freshman Democrat has said he will fight Big Pharma, records show he banked in through pharmaceutical investments.
Cisneros owned up to nearly $700,000 in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in 2019, according to his latest House Financial Disclosure form. He previously had $635,000 in pharmaceutical and biotechnology investments in 2018, according to his 2019 form, and owned up to $1,055,000 in the same industries in 2017.
Records show Cisneros owns hundreds of thousands in stock in the pharmaceutical industry, and his foundation owned stock in one company that increased the price on an arthritis medication by over 1,600% and another that raised the price of insulin by almost 700%.
Cisneros, however, previously touted support for lowering prescription drug prices by pointing to his December 2019 vote in favor of the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, HR3.
“Today, Representative Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr. (CA-39) released the following statement after H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, passed the House. The Act will reduce prescription drug costs for millions of Americans. Rep. Cisneros has been a staunch advocate for lowering prescription drug costs and reducing healthcare costs for his constituents,” a statement from Cisneros’s office said at the time of the legislation’s lower chamber passage.
In 2017, the Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros Foundation owned shares in Sanofi-Aventis, each worth $7,632, but Sanofi-Aventis increased the price of its insulin from $35 per vial when it was introduced in 2001 to $270 in 2019, causing bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill.
Sanofi-Aventis is a French pharmaceutical company founded in 2004 through the merger of Sanofi-Synthelabo and Aventis, a much larger firm.
The foundation also invested in the pharmaceutical company Horizon Therapeutics, which makes the arthritis drug Vimovo. The company hiked its prices between 2015 and 2016.
Beginning in 2014, Vimovo’s price was increased by Horizon 1,600%, and between January 2014 and July 2016, the company increased the list price of the drug six times to $2,250. The foundation was no longer invested in the pharmaceutical company after 2016.
Cisneros pledged in 2018 to not accept any PAC or corporate special interest money during his campaign. Politico, however, reported that four lobbyists, one of whom represented a major pharmaceutical company, hosted a fundraiser for the California lawmaker in April of last year. The lobbyists represent clients that include AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, Pfizer, Verizon, and Wells Fargo.
Although the event did not violate Cisneros’s pledge to refuse corporate PAC money, it still enabled the same corporations’ lobbyists to cut personal checks or host fundraisers for lawmakers such as Cisneros.
The Cisneros campaign, instead, stated on its website that the congressman would continue to defend the Affordable Care Act, adding, “We need to work to stabilize insurance markets and have the government directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies to bring costs down.”
*This article has been updated to clarify that Cisneros pledged to refuse corporate PAC money not money from corporate lobbyists as previously reported.
