Senate Finance Chair Wyden continues fight over low pharma tax … – Endpoints News

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) isn’t done dig­ging in­to the par­tic­u­lar­ly low tax rates for phar­ma com­pa­nies, and how their for­eign ops can low­er those bills.
In a three-page let­ter sent to Bris­tol My­ers Squibb CEO Gio­van­ni Caforio, Wyden sought more in­for­ma­tion on Bris­tol My­ers’ in­ter­na­tion­al tax prac­tices as the Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gates how phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies who are based in the US can low­er its tax rates via “com­plex cross-bor­der tax avoid­ance strate­gies.”
The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, ac­cord­ing to the let­ter, has al­ready sent BMS ques­tions re­gard­ing its for­ma­tion of a for­eign part­ner­ship in Ire­land and the shift­ing of IP rights of drugs to that part­ner­ship. Wyden and the com­mit­tee are look­ing to un­der­stand whether the trans­ac­tion helped Bris­tol My­ers re­duce its tax li­a­bil­i­ty.
“Based on re­spons­es Bris­tol My­ers has pro­vid­ed the com­mit­tee through out­side coun­sel, it ap­pears this trans­ac­tion helped Bris­tol My­ers avoid pay­ing a sig­nif­i­cant amount of fed­er­al tax­es, which the IRS is seek­ing to col­lect,” the let­ter said.
The com­mit­tee is al­so look­ing for new in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the “sub­stan­tial dis­crep­an­cy” be­tween where BMS gen­er­ates most of its pre­scrip­tion drug sales and where the phar­ma books the prof­its from those sales for tax pur­pos­es. Wyden’s let­ter is al­so look­ing to un­der­stand why the com­pa­ny paid a tax rate of 13% in 2021, far be­low the cor­po­rate tax rate of 21%.
“The Amer­i­can pub­lic de­serves a full un­der­stand­ing of the ex­tent to which U.S. phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies may have tak­en ad­van­tage of weak­ness­es in in­ter­na­tion­al tax law, in­clud­ing the new pro­vi­sions of the 2017 Re­pub­li­can tax law, to re­duce tax­es on U.S. drug sales through the use of sub­sidiaries in low or ze­ro-tax ju­ris­dic­tions. In ad­vance of po­ten­tial pub­lic hear­ings and propos­ing new leg­isla­tive changes, it is crit­i­cal to un­der­stand how Bris­tol My­ers, a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion with an­nu­al sales of $46 bil­lion, paid a low­er tax rate than a postal ser­vice work­er or a preschool teacher,” the let­ter em­pha­sized.
The chair al­so wants more in­for­ma­tion from Bris­tol My­ers, in­clud­ing a de­tailed coun­try-by-coun­try break­down of pre-tax earn­ings, prof­it mar­gins, em­ploy­ee head­count and tax paid for the tax years of 2018 through 2021.
The phar­ma will al­so need to pro­vide a de­tailed list of the en­ti­ties that own patents or trade­marks that have the right to sell a list of its drug prod­ucts, in­clud­ing Op­di­vo, Eliquis and Revlim­id, among many oth­ers, as well as a “de­tailed ex­pla­na­tion” as to how BMS’ ef­fec­tive tax rate de­clined to 13% in 2021. A re­sponse to these and sev­er­al oth­er points is re­quest­ed by Jan. 16.
In an email to End­points News, a BMS spokesper­son con­firmed that it has re­ceived the let­ter and is re­view­ing its con­tents.
“We will con­tin­ue to co­op­er­ate with the com­mit­tee chair­man on his ad­di­tion­al in­quiries and ap­pre­ci­ate the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to his let­ter,” the BMS spokesper­son replied to End­points.
BMS is not the on­ly phar­ma that Wyden has in his sights.
In De­cem­ber, the sen­a­tor asked CEO Bob Brad­way for more in­for­ma­tion on Am­gen’s fi­nan­cials and to ex­plain how it paid a low­er tax rate than the stan­dard cor­po­rate tax rate.
And in the sum­mer of last year, Wyden sent fol­low-up let­ters to both Mer­ck and Ab­bott af­ter both com­pa­nies failed to an­swer ques­tions and com­ply with his in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to how a 2017 tax law helped slash tax rates for large, US-based phar­ma com­pa­nies by mov­ing prof­its off­shore.
As life science executives from around the world head to San Francisco this January for the premier week in healthcare partnering, Issei Tsukamoto, Head of Business Development, Mike Luther, Head of Search & Evaluation, and Chieko Mori, Head of Transactions, from Astellas share their perspectives on how partnering approaches need to change to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving industry. Additional insights are provided by Gary Starling, Chief Scientific Officer of Xyphos Biosciences, a biotechnology company that is advancing the development of a novel, flexible cancer cell therapy platform, and was acquired by Astellas in 2019.
J&J’s consumer health unit Kenvue filed for an IPO on Wednesday, setting in motion the long-anticipated plans for its official spinoff.
Kenvue is touting itself as the “world’s largest pure-play consumer health company,” with popular brands such as Neutrogena, Tylenol, Band-Aid and Listerine in tow. The unit raked in just over $15.1 billion in 2021. Upon unveiling its new name and look back in September, J&J said Kenvue would become an independent company by November 2023.
An outspoken Chris Viehbacher spent six years trying unsuccessfully to prod Sanofi’s multibillion-dollar R&D group into a more productive phase that relied less on partners like Regeneron for their big new drugs. Then it all went up in smoke as chairman Serge Weinberg led the board in ousting him from the CEO suite, complaining about Viehbacher’s management style and persistent efforts to carve down the French staff.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel made it clear early on in their M&A mapping phase that the biotech would be hunting the world for just the right mRNA-related deals to build the company into a global powerhouse. And nothing illustrates that strategy better than the $85 million tuck-in that the biotech is unveiling this morning.
Bancel has struck a deal to buy Tokyo-based OriCiro Genomics and its work on cell-free synthesis and amplification of plasmid DNA, building up their set of tech for manufacturing aimed at scaling up production faster and carving weeks out of the process.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
Sarepta spent much of last year marching forward with its candidate SRP-9001, a gene therapy treatment for the rare but fatal Duchenne muscular dystrophy, eventually filing a BLA for an accelerated approval, with a May 29 PDUFA date and a likely adcomm on the way too.
The Cambridge, MA-based biotech on Thursday signed a commercial supply agreement with the New Jersey-based CDMO Catalent to manufacture SRP-9001 and to support other gene therapy candidates in Sarepta’s pipeline for another rare, genetic disease related to muscle deterioration, known as limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD). Financial details of the deal were not disclosed and Endpoints News did not hear back from Catalent by press time.
McKinsey Consulting’s Brian Fox is joining Klick Group to boost its commercialization practice. The 18-year McKinsey veteran headed up the commercial life sciences practice there before joining Klick this week in a bid to drive its go-to-market capabilities with clients.
Fox’s expertise spans product launches, sales force management, medical and corporate affairs, market access and clinical development. Klick already offers many of those services to biotech and pharma customers, but is looking to Fox to “turbocharge” those efforts, Klick co-founder and chairman Leerom Segal said.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
Bristol Myers Squibb is handing over the keys to its manufacturing site in Syracuse, NY, to South Korean company Lotte Biologics.
BMS announced this week that the sale of the facility is complete, with its divesture from the Syracuse manufacturing site a part of an effort to “evolve” the pharma’s manufacturing network. As part of the deal, all employees will continue to work for Lotte. BMS has also entered into a contract with Lotte to continue manufacturing some of its products at the facility.
A month after the FDA rejected its neuroblastoma drug, the biotech Y-mabs said it will cut 35% of its workforce to save cash and focus on commercializing its lone approved product, Danyelza.
The FDA rejected its drug omburtamab on Dec. 2, based on questions about the company’s clinical trial and after an advisory committee voted 16-0 against recommending the drug. The cuts will reduce operating expenses by 28%, and give Y-mabs enough cash to get through the first quarter of 2026.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it’s free.
Amgen started off the new year with a bang, joining forces with ADC player Synaffix and agreeing to dole out as high as $2 billion in Synaffix’s largest ADC licensing deal to date.
The Dutch biotech — running in the same circles as ADC Therapeutics, Seagen, MacroGenics and Emergence Therapeutics — said Thursday that it secured a licensing deal with Amgen to develop new ADCs. As part of the deal, the Big Pharma gets access to Synaffix’s ADC platforms and technology, starting out with one ADC program. Amgen retains an option to exclusively license four more programs at a later date, but what those programs could be remains under wraps.
Bioscience & Technology Business Center
The University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
© Endpoints Company 2023
If you’re already an Endpoints subscriber, enter your email below for a magic link that lets you log in quickly without using a password. Please note the magic link is one-time use only and expires after 24 hours.
We’ll e-mail you a link to set a new password. Please note this link is one-time use only and is valid for only 24 hours.
ENDPOINTS NEWS Daily at 11:30 AM ET
EARLY EDITION Daily at 7:15 AM ET
ENDPOINTS PHARMA Daily at 2 PM ET
ENDPOINTS MARKETING RX Tue at 2 PM ET
ENDPOINTS FDA+ Wed at 2 PM ET
ENDPOINTS MANUFACTURING Thu at 2 PM ET
ENDPOINTS WEEKLY Sat at 6 AM ET

source