Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17250

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Publication type: news

Mundy A
Drug Industry Signals Lobbying Shift
The Wall Street Journal 2010 Feb 12
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704479704575061724047425954.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs

Full text:

With the departure of their top lobbyist Billy Tauzin, drug makers are looking to retain the concessions he negotiated from Democrats while signaling to Republicans that the industry is heading back to its conservative roots.

Mr. Tauzin announced Thursday that he is stepping down as president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s main lobby in Washington. He had faced criticism from some in the drug industry as well as other business groups and Republican leaders for the alliance he made with the White House last year to support health-overhaul legislation.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said the government should negotiate Medicare drug prices directly with drug companies and advocated importation of low-priced drugs from Canada. However, after negotiations with PhRMA, his administration declined to pursue either policy. During the health-care debate last year, a measure to allow drug imports from Canada and elsewhere didn’t get White House backing and failed to win sufficient Senate support.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) blasted Mr. Tauzin in a letter that accused him of selling out the American people to protect future drug-industry profits. PhRMA’s agreement with Mr. Obama committed the drug industry to contribute $80 billion in health-care cost savings over the next decade, in part by lowering some medicines’ prices to close a gap in seniors’ Medicare coverage.

Negotiations toward that deal began shortly after the 2008 elections, in which PhRMA, which had historically given heavily to Republican candidates, split its political contributions between both parties.

With Republicans expected to make gains in this year’s elections-and the Democrats’ health-care overhaul in doubt-drug companies are likely to seek an industry insider to succeed Mr. Tauzin, rather than a figure who could arouse partisan passions, Washington lobbyists said.

Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, praised Mr. Tauzin for improving the pharmaceutical industry’s image, although Mr. Donohue is an outspoken opponent of the health-care overhaul that Mr. Tauzin backed.

When Mr. Tauzin took over PhRMA in 2005, drug companies were reeling from a series of recalls and problems with popular drugs linked to death, diseases and suicide. “Billy stabilized the drug industry,” said Mr. Donohue.

Mr. Tauzin’s initiatives showcased the industry as patient-friendly and nonpartisan. He sent talk-show host Montel Williams on a national bus tour to promote a program to help lower-income people buy prescription drugs.

However, some company chief executives weren’t used to Mr. Tauzin’s blunt advice about survival skills in Washington. In 2008, when House members demanded a two-year moratorium on consumer advertising for newly approved drugs, Mr. Tauzin didn’t blast back, as some drug industry leaders urged, but countered with an offer of six months.

“Our members were advertising life-saving medicines like it’s Pepsi, and that hurt us,” he said in an interview at the time. He said he warned his CEOs in a conference call, “Your house is on fire, and you’re still smoking in bed.”

Pfizer Inc.‘s frequent television ads for its anticholesterol drug Lipitor had become a magnet for congressional ire. Pfizer declined to comment Friday but released a statement by Chief Executive Jeffrey Kindler thanking Mr. Tauzin for his contributions to PhRMA.

Last year, Mr. Tauzin said that he had told PhRMA member companies he only planned to stay five years.

An aide to a Republican congressman said he expected PhRMA to return to its earlier Republican-leaning stance.

However, as long as Democrats continue to control Congress, drug companies will seek to uphold Mr. Tauzin’s successes in keeping some issues off the table, such as direct governmental negotiation of Medicare drug prices, said John Rother, vice president of the seniors’ lobby AARP.

He called Mr. Tauzin a “pretty shrewd negotiator.”