Congress Is Investigating Whether a Ventilator Company Is Gouging the U.S. -- and Why the Government

https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-investigating-whether-a-ventilator-company-is-gouging-the-us-and-why-the-government-is-letting-it-happen

A congressional subcommittee is questioning a federal decision to pay quadruple the price for the commercial version of a ventilator Royal Philips N.V. had developed with taxpayer funds.

A congressional subcommittee is investigating whether the U.S. government is paying too much for ventilators made by a Dutch company that received millions in tax dollars to develop an affordable one for pandemics, but is now charging quadruple the price under a new deal.

“This all seems very fishy to me,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who chairs the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy. The subcommittee falls under the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

The deals between the Department of Health and Human Services and a U.S. division of Royal Philips N.V. were the subject of two ProPublica stories in recent weeks, and a letter from Krishnamoorthi to the head of Philips’ North American operations on behalf of the subcommittee cites those reports. His subcommittee demanded records and information from Philips dating to 2014, when the agency’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, struck a $13.8 million deal with the company to develop ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile. Based on the advice of experts, the agreement called for the devices to be low cost, portable, durable and easy to use by personnel with limited medical training.



Much more at link.