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WASHINGTON — Republican senators on Tuesday blasted President Biden’s health secretary nominee using an unexpected argument: He’s not sympathetic enough to the pharmaceutical industry.

The attack on Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, is a surprising twist following years of agitation on Capitol Hill and from the Trump administration over high drug prices. But it also highlights the credibility that pharmaceutical companies may have earned after developing several Covid-19 vaccines in record time, and the challenge Becerra could face in balancing pricing frustrations with the industry’s central role in pandemic response.

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During a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), the panel’s top Republican and a longtime drug industry ally, attacked Becerra’s credentials, comparing his track record to Trump health secretary Alex Azar’s “extensive career in the pharmaceutical sector” prior to leading the Department of Health and Human Services. Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), who does not hold a seat on either committee overseeing Becerra’s confirmation, told Fox News that Becerra was an “extreme” nominee, in part because “he’s never worked at a pharmaceutical company.”

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