Nonprofit linked to PHRMA behind ads opposing drug pricing changes

WASHINGTON — The nonprofit organization behind a wide-reaching ad campaign against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices has deep ties to pharmaceutical lobbyists.

A cable ad campaign has made a patient group called the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease ubiquitous on television screens in Washington, D.C., and 13 states including Arizona, Colorado and Georgia.

“Thirteen years ago, I noticed a lump on my stomach, and sure enough, they found a cancerous tumor on my liver.

I’ve got to take about 22 pills a day,” a man named Bo says in one of the group’s ads. “Take it from someone who knows: Medicare price negotiation isn’t the answer.”

Undisclosed in the heart-wrenching commercials: The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease has extensive ties to the lobby for major pharmaceutical companies, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PHRMA.

For nine years, it shared an address with PHRMA, which advocates for pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Amgen and Glaxosmithkline. Lobbyists for the partnership also lobby for drug companies, and they list PHRMA as a related organization on their required disclosure forms.

The partnership is now located at the office of a consulting firm paid by the nonprofit, a three-minute walk from its former location at PHRMA. Two of the firm’s leaders were once vice presidents at PHRMA focusing on public relations, according to the consulting firm’s Linkedin page.

“These are the telltale signs of an astroturf operation,” said Meredith Mcgehee, executive director of Issue

One, a Washington watchdog group, using a term to describe something that appears to the public like an independent group but is actually supported by a wealthy special interest.

The nonprofit does not disclose its funders.

The partnership’s ad buy is worth at least $5.3 million, according to research by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, a nonprofit that opposes them and ran its own nearly $4 million ad campaign supporting Democrats’ drug pricing proposal.