Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13880
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Kuli A.
Amgen, Pfizer Top 2007 US Drug-Lobbyist List, Watchdog Says
Bloomberg.com 2008 Jun 25
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aWhccblHHSyo
Full text:
Amgen Inc., the world’s biggest biotechnology company, and Pfizer Inc., the world’s No. 1 maker of conventional drugs, outspent rivals last year in efforts to influence U.S. lawmakers, according to a watchdog group.
Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, spent $16.3 million in 2007, nearly 10 percent of total drug-lobby spending on Capitol Hill, according to an analysis released yesterday by the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based independent journalism organization. New York-based Pfizer came in second with $13.8 million. Trade group Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America topped the list of organizational donors with $22.7 million, CPI said.
The drug lobby spent a record $168 million on Capitol Hill last year, nearly one third more than in 2006, possibly influencing votes on bills including a proposal to restrict advertisements for prescription drugs, according to CPI. Spending may have increased because the industry needed to hire lobbyists with links to the U.S. Democratic Party, which wrested control of Congress from President George W. Bush’s Republicans last year for the first time since 1995.
``For the first time on record, the pharmaceutical and health products industry has given slightly more money to Democrats than Republicans,’‘ CPI said, citing the Center for Responsive Politics, also a Washington-based government watchdog group.
Lobby groups may have contributed to decisions to block imports of cheaper drugs from other countries, to protect drugmaker patents and to open the U.S. market to foreign competition, according to the CPI’s analysis.
Other top spenders included Roche Holding AG at $13.8 million, Sanofi-Aventis SA with $8.4 million, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc at $8.2 million, according to CPI’s data.
