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(WATCH) Pharma Lobby
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The government just announced the price Medicare pays for the diabetes-slash-weight loss drug Ozempic will soon be negotiated lower as part of a new program designed to bring down prices. One of 15 drugs now subject to price changes to take effect in 2027. The watchdog group Public Citizen looked into how much some of the big-name drug companies have spent fighting the new price control initiative.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
Some hugely profitable drugs are targeted under price controls passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.
Lisa Gilbert is with the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Sharyl: What were these companies trying to do? What influence did they try to have on the Inflation Reduction Act?
Lisa Gilbert: Well, they did not like it. And that is because it’s the first time ever we’ve been able to negotiate drug prices, as I’m sure you, and, and everyone out there in America knows drug prices are way too high. And one of the things that pharmaceutical companies do not want is to be able to have those prices negotiated by the government, by Medicare, so that they become lower and regular Americans can have fair pricing.
Sharyl: So what, what came out of their lobbying efforts? And then we’ll talk about the money they spent.
Gilbert: Well, interestingly, this is one of the few times that pharma was defeated.
The Inflation Reduction Act permits the federal government to negotiate down the price Medicare will pay to buy some older drugs, ten to begin with, prescribed to elderly Americans. The new prices are to take effect in 2026.
It’s estimated 7.7 million Medicare patients took at least one of the ten drugs in 2022, costing taxpayers $46.4 billion that year alone. Two of the costliest are: Xarelto and Eliquis, both used to prevent and treat blood clots. In just one year alone, Medicare shelled out an incredible $6 billion for Xarelto and $16.4 billion for Eliquis.
Sharyl: What kind of money were the drug companies putting into spending to lobby to try to get what they wanted?
Gilbert: Millions of dollars. In this case, 43 million in the period of time that we looked at. So 2022, 2023, they don’t say in their disclosures exactly what they’re fighting for, but they say that they’re lobbying on the Inflation Reduction Act. And since they’re all part of the Pharma Trade Association that is very outspoken in opposition, we can clearly intuit that that’s what they were using it for.
From July of 2022 through 2023, Public Citizen says Bristol Myers Squibb, connected to Eliquis, spent about $10 million lobbying. Johnson & Johnson connected to Xarelto, spent about $11 million.
They’re spending more in court. Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck are suing the federal government calling the Drug Pricing Negotiation Program a “sham,” “tantamount to extortion,” and “unconstitutional.”
Sharyl: In terms of political parties, do the pharmaceutical companies tend to lobby one much more than the other, or do they spread the money around?
Gilbert: You know, it’s spread around and I think that’s because you know, they wanna be prepared for any eventuality and they have the money to do so.
Sharyl: Looking forward at issues that impact our health and the drugs that we take, what do you think is a message people should know about pharmaceutical industry money and lobbying?
Gilbert: That it is enormous, egregious and it is not working for you. One stat we haven’t talked about yet, 143 lobbyists is how many people, individual people they hired to run around the Hill, to walk to the administration, and tell them that the Inflation Reduction Act, drug negotiations were a bad idea. That just shows the scope and scale of what they’re able to achieve. And certainly, you know, the types of goals they have don’t align with what regular Americans want.
Sharyl (on-camera): Public Citizen and other consumer and health groups have filed court briefs supporting the Medicare drug price negotiation law.
Watch video here.
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