Chris Christie Blasts Pharma Ads. He Gets Paid by a Company That Runs Them

Gregory Korte
·4 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Chris Christie unleashed a two-minute rant against televised drug ads in announcing his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination last week, saying that marketing campaigns raise the price of medicines for Americans.

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“Stop with all these commercials! These commercials drive me crazy!” he told New Hampshire Republicans.

Yet the former New Jersey governor made no mention of his role in the pharmaceutical industry, where he serves on the board of Pacira BioSciences Inc., a maker of pain management drugs marketed as opioid alternatives in television ads.

Pacira’s 30-second ad doesn’t reference the company’s brand names, instead directing consumers to a website to “learn more about non-opioid options for managing pain after surgery.” The ad has been running since at least 2020 and continues to appear intermittently, according to tracking firm AdImpact.

Christie joined Pacira as a consultant after leaving the governor’s mansion in 2018. He made $801,000 before joining the company’s board in 2019. Shareholders at Pacira’s annual meeting in Tampa, Florida, were expected to reelect Christie to a new three-year term on Tuesday. Board members make $325,072 a year.

The Christie campaign wouldn’t comment on whether the former governor would resign his board seat if he wins the Republican nomination, but said his blunt answer to a question about drug prices demonstrated he doesn’t play favorites.

“The voters saw firsthand at the town hall Governor Christie call out the impacts of advertising within the pharmaceutical industry,” said spokesman Karl Rickett. “No matter what the topic, Christie is never shy about telling the truth, and voters will continue to see that throughout this campaign.”

‘Game-Changer’

As the ex-governor of a state that touts itself as the “Medicine Chest of the World,” Christie has cultivated ties to the drug industry.

He leveraged those ties in 2017, when he served as chair of a blue-ribbon commission on opioid addiction under former President Donald Trump, the man he now seeks to dislodge as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president.

Among the drug executives he invited to testify was Pacira CEO David Stack, who told the commission that federal Medicare reimbursement policies should give doctors more incentives to prescribe non-opioid pain drugs.

Pacira’s recommendation was part of Christie’s report to Trump. “We should incentivize insurers and the government to pay for non-opioid treatments for pain beginning right in the operating room and at every treatment step along the way,” Christie wrote.

Christie’s letter had the potential to be a “game-changer” for Pacira, wrote Randall Stanicky, then an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

In 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published a new rule that specifically changed how it reimburses hospitals for Pacira’s flagship product, Exparel, which accounts for the bulk of its sales. Previously, the drug was classified as a surgical supply, with the price bundled into the cost of the procedure. The agency, citing the commission’s recommendations, allowed hospitals to charge Medicare separately for the medication.

Pacira didn’t return requests for comment.

Christie was also a registered lobbyist in 2020 and 2021, representing a range of hospitals, drugstores and pharmaceutical companies including diabetes drugmaker Novo Nordisk, which paid him $120,000 to lobby on Medicare drug coverage.

Drug Costs

Drug companies spend more than $6 billion a year on direct-to-consumer advertising.

The Government Accountability Office reported in 2021 that 58% of Medicare prescription medication spending was on advertised drugs. Although pharmaceutical companies benefit from the ads triggering greater sales, restricting such marketing could lead to fewer patients seeking treatment, according to research from University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy.

Answering a question about the cost of drugs at his campaign kick-off in New Hampshire, Christie said “we have to find a balance” on pharmaceutical regulation, but generally sided with the industry, saying it’s “saving lives every day.”

In a CNN town hall on Monday, Christie spoke passionately about the need for drug addition treatment. “We had 110,000 Americans die last year of opioid overdose,” he said. “It’s unacceptable.”

Christie is one of two Republicans who have retained board seats on publicly traded companies while running for president. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley serves on the board of United Homes Group Inc., which formed this year through the merger of DiamondHead Holdings Corp. and Great Southern Homes Inc., where she was paid $187,873 in cash and stock option awards last year.

Christie also serves on the board of the New York Mets, whose owner, Point72 Asset Management LP founder Steve Cohen, has been a prominent supporter of the Republican. Point72 disclosed a 1% holding in Pacira last month.

(Adds details on Christie’s lobbying work in 15th paragraph. Earlier version corrected campaign statement on whether Christie would step down from Pacira if he wins nomination)

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