As he chairs Trump's opioid commission, Christie champions his home-state drug companies

WASHINGTON — When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wanted to convene a meeting with some of the nation's top pharmaceutical companies in Trenton last month, state economic development officials invited CEOs with the promise of "a good networking opportunity."

In a ballroom in a state office building, 17 pharmaceutical executives met with top White House advisers, members of President Trump's opioid commission, the director of the National Institutes of Health, and federal regulators who oversee the drug industry, who pitched what they called a "public-private partnership" to address the opioid crisis.

But the meeting wasn't set up by the White House or public health officials. Emails obtained by USA TODAY show that many invitations came from Choose New Jersey, a nonprofit economic development agency run by a longtime Christie friend and political aide.

A week later, the New Jersey governor invited some of those same executives to testify before the opioid commission — which Christie chairs — to promote their own drugs and therapies to treat opioid use disorder or to provide alternatives to the powerful painkillers in the first place. Three of the 10 companies invited to testify have headquarters in New Jersey.

Those records highlight the unique position Christie holds as Trump's point man on the opioids: In addition to leading the national response to the crisis, he's also the governor of a state that calls itself “the medicine chest of the world." 

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The industry supports 150,000 jobs in New Jersey, says trade group BioNJ, and 17 of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies have major operations in the Garden State. Pharmaceutical executives helped bankroll his campaigns for governor, and his work as chairman of the Republican Governor's Association. Christie sees his dual role not as a conflict, but an asset.

Christie: Long history an asset

"I think that the fact that I have these relationships helps, given what you saw at that meeting," Christie said in an interview with USA TODAY. "Because they know I'm a guy who cares deeply about this issue, and I'm someone they have a long history with, they all came."

"I think you can be somebody who recognizes the value of those companies, not just for the economy of your state and all the rest of that, but also the fact that NIH by itself will not solve this problem."

But the relationship has some industry critics questioning whether pharmaceutical executives have too much influence on the deliberations of the opioid commission, whose job is to figure out ways to end the crisis of addiction and overdose deaths from legal painkillers sold illicitly.

"We should not be looking to industry to solve a problem they created. The answer to a pill problem is not always new pills," said Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, a pharmacology professor at Georgetown University and director of PharmedOut, a watchdog group that follows pharmaceutical industry marketing efforts.

The commission has had three meetings so far, and taken testimony at two of them. The first featured a cross-section of nine experts and advocates; the second featured 11 pharmaceutical company representatives. Christie says he's also considered about 12,000 written comments.

Many of those comments come from people suffering from pain and addiction, but also from drug companies.  

Christie also acknowledged two previously undisclosed meetings with drug companies as chairman of the opioid commission: One was with ADAPT Pharma, the Irish company that makes Narcan, the leading naloxone treatment to counteract opioid overdoses. Christie said he was particularly interested in which formulations were more effective against which drugs.

The second was with Alkermes, the makers of Vivitrol, an opioid withdrawal drug that competes with methadone and buprenorphine, to learn about how the medication-assisted therapies work differently.

Both meetings, Christie said, were at his invitation and were with Patrick Kennedy, a Democratic former congressman from Rhode Island who also sits on the commission. "Some of this is a learning experience for me," he said. "I haven't felt lobbied about anything from these folks."Two more commission meetings

The commission — formally known as the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis — has two more meetings scheduled before releasing its final recommendations Nov. 1.

The commission is staffed by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. On Tuesday, Trump's nominee for ONDCP director — better known as the "drug czar" — withdrew his consideration after questions arose about his relationship to the drug industry.

As a congressman, Rep. Tom Marino, R-Pa., pushed through a bill that stripped the Drug Enforcement Agency's ability to seize shipments of opioids suspected to be headed for the black market, the Washington Post reported. 

That revelation came as Trump says he's prepared to declare a state of national emergency to deal with the drug crisis next week. An emergency, one of the key interim recommendations of Christie's commission, could give Trump broad powers — including the ability to unilaterally set Medicaid reimbursement rates for certain drugs used in hospital and inpatient settings.

More:Trump says he'll declare opioid crisis a national emergency. Here's what that could mean

The commission's interim report in July also emphasized "partnerships" with the pharmaceutical industry, including other measures advocated by the industry: More federal research money for medicines, better Medicare and Medicaid coverage for addiction treatment, and broader access to naloxone drugs for first responders to treat overdoses.

The Sept. 18 meeting was private and did not follow the federal Sunshine Act that requires advance notice of meetings of federal commissions. But its existence wasn't a secret: Christie held a press conference about it afterward, and it was widely covered by state newspapers at the time.

"This problem will not be addressed sufficiently in our country if we don’t have the active involvement and partnership with the pharmaceutical companies," Christie said at the time, flanked by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins and White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway.  

The meeting's dual purpose as an economic development opportunity for the state came to light in emails received by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. Many of the invitations came from Michele Brown, a longtime Christie friend, aide and neighbor who heads Choose New Jersey and is also Christie's nominee to the board of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state's largest health insurer. She referred questions about her role to the governor's office.

"I immediately thought of you"

"They want to discuss how the pharmaceutical community can partner with them. It's a good networking opportunity with both Dr. Collins and Scott Gottlieb," Brown wrote in an email to several pharmaceutical company CEOs. "I immediately thought of you."

Gottlieb is the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pharmaceutical companies. He was unable to attend; instead he sent deputy commissioner Anna Abram.

Christie said he's had to do much of the commission work from his New Jersey office. He said Choose New Jersey had the contacts that would bring some new players to the table.

"A lot of the larger pharma companies — or some of the niche-ier, edgier, inventive ones — were not in this space, and that was the only way we could expand the options for non-opioid pain treatment," he said. 

Also among the pharmaceutical executives present was Craig Landau, CEO of Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin. Dozens of states are suing Purdue, alleging its marketing practices encouraged irresponsible use of the powerful painkillers, fueling the addiction crisis. 

The New Jersey attorney general, who was appointed by Christie, is reportedly preparing a similar lawsuit. Christie said he would "get out of the way and let the legal process take its course."

Also present was Robert Hugin, executive chairman of the pharmaceutical company Celgene, who is twice connected to Christie: Not only does he sit on the board of Choose New Jersey, but he also contributed $100,000 to Christie's super PAC.

As a candidate for president in 2016, Christie received $441,100 in campaign support from the industry, including some of the same companies he's invited to the Trump White House. (That amount was more than the $296,877 President Trump received, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, but far less than Democrat Hillary Clinton's $12.1 million.)

Christie isn't the only member of the commission with ties to opioid makers. Kennedy is a paid adviser to Advocates for Opioid Recovery, an advocacy group he co-founded with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Van Jones, a former domestic policy adviser to President Barack Obama. 

AOR is funded by a $900,000 grant from the parent company of Braeburn Pharmaceuticals, regulatory filings show. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.

Braeburn is seeking FDA approval for a drug to treat opioid use disorder, and its CEO attended both the Trenton meeting with Christie and the opioid commission meeting at the White House.  

The Trenton meeting was led by Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health. He offered to partner with drug companies to find opioid alternatives — including new drugs and new formulations and compounds of existing drugs — amd on medication-assisted therapies to treat addiction and withdrawal.

Fugh-Berman, the Georgetown professor, called that "depressing." 

"Public-private partnerships shouldn't consist of spending public funds to maximize private profits," she said.

But Christie said federal funding alone won't find new solutions without research and development from the industry. "Everyone at that table by the end of the meeting agreed to work in partnership on those two issues," Christie said. 

Collins' presentation ended with a quote from basketball legend Michael Jordan, illustrating the close working relationship that Trump administration is seeking with drug companies: "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

Dustin Racioppi of the Bergen Record contributed from Trenton, N.J.