Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, is said to have privately praised pharmaceutical companies despite publicly supporting initiatives to cut drug prices.

Bloomberg reported Sunday that Biden told a gathering of donors at the Dallas home of David Genecov, a craniofacial surgeon, that there were "great drug companies out there — except a couple of opioid outfits."

One of Biden's challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, criticized the comment in a statement provided to Business Insider, saying he disagreed with Biden for praising what he described as companies that were "greedy, corrupt, and engaged in price fixing."

Biden, Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts squared off over healthcare at Thursday's Democratic presidential debate.

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Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, is said to have privately praised pharmaceutical companies despite publicly supporting initiatives to cut drug prices.

Bloomberg reported Sunday that Biden told a gathering of donors at the Dallas home of David Genecov, a craniofacial surgeon, that there were "great drug companies out there — except a couple of opioid outfits."

One of Biden's fellow 2020 hopefuls, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, criticized the comment in a statement provided to Business Insider, saying he disagreed with Biden for praising what he called companies that were "greedy, corrupt, and engaged in price fixing."

"At a time when their behavior is literally killing people every day, America needs a president who isn't going to appease and compliment drug companies — we need a president who will take on the pharmaceutical industry — whether they like it or not," Sanders said in the statement. "When we defeat Donald Trump, that's exactly what we are going to do."

Days earlier, Biden, Sanders, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had squared off over healthcare at Thursday's Democratic presidential debate.

Read more: Joe Biden is running for president in 2020. Here's everything we know about the candidate and how he stacks up against the competition.

Sanders has advocated restrictions on drug companies that would be meant to cut costs for patients. He also supports "Medicare for All," a healthcare overhaul in which all Americans would be enrolled in a Medicare-like system but which Biden has criticized as too expensive.

Biden has instead proposed smaller-scale improvements to the Affordable Care Act, saying in July at the second Democratic debate that he supported cost controls for pharmaceutical drugs in which drugmakers settled on an initial price and then "you cannot raise that price beyond the cost of inflation from this point on."