[Ip-health] Biotech firms lobby for say on healthcare: $66m effort to protect drug-patent exclusivity

[James Love]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/21/biotech_fi=
rms_lobby_hard_for_say_on_healthcare/?page=3Dfull

Biotech firms lobby for say on healthcare: $66m effort to protect
drug-patent exclusivity
By Lisa Wangsness
Globe Staff / July 21, 2009

WASHINGTON - The 46 million Americans without health insurance are
probably not spending much time thinking about how Congress should curb
monopolies on expensive biotech drugs. But the issue, which offers a
case study in the ways of Washington influence, is among dozens that
have spurred a lobbying frenzy this summer as Congress debates a
historic healthcare overhaul.
=09Discuss
COMMENTS (13)

Biotech firms, big pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, doctors, and
players from every corner of the US healthcare industry are working hard
to protect profits, as the government seeks ways to hold down the cost
of expanding health insurance to all Americans.

Pharmaceutical interests alone, including many from Massachusetts, spent
more than $66 million on lobbying in just the first quarter of this
year, up 25 percent from last year, according to the nonpartisan Center
for Responsive Politics. Drug companies accounted for more than half of
all healthcare lobbying.

=E2=80=9CThey are on pace to obliterate their total lobbying expenditures f=
rom
any other previ ous year,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 said Dave Levinthal, the center=
=E2=80=99s
communications director.

The intense effort by biopharmaceutical companies that are clustered in
Cambridge and Boston, as well as California and a few other places
around the country, provides an example of how these battles have kicked
into overdrive.

Biotech firms produce the most expensive drugs on the market, charging
$10,000 to $100,000 a year for a single patient, and generics would
seriously undercut those prices. In their quest to win a 12-year
exclusivity period for their drugs, free from such competition, biotech
companies have launched a massive education campaign about what they say
are the sky-high research and development costs involved with bringing
them to market.

To help carry the message, they are paying well-connected lobbying
firms, sponsoring radio ads as well as academic studies, and
contributing to the campaign coffers of influential lawmakers.

=E2=80=9CYou get one crack at it,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 said Robert Coughlin, p=
resident of the
Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, speaking of the task of drawing up
a licensing system for =E2=80=9Cbiogenerics.=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 =E2=80=9CIf =
it isn=E2=80=99t done right, it could
literally put the biotech industry out of business.=E2=80=99=E2=80=99

The quest for influence is not always obvious.

Howard Dean, the former Democratic Party chairman, wrote an opinion
piece this month in The Hill, an influential Capitol Hill newspaper,
arguing that fewer than 12 years of monopoly rights for biotech
companies=E2=80=99 products =E2=80=9Cwould prematurely rob innovators of th=
eir
intellectual property and . . . destroy incentives to develop new
cures.=E2=80=99=E2=80=99

Within hours Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant who ran Dean=E2=80=99s 200=
4
presidential race, hyped Dean=E2=80=99s opinion piece in a blog post that h=
e
sent to The Huffington Post, a widely read website. =E2=80=9CHe=E2=80=99s a=
 doctor and
lifelong advocate for health reform - he knows what he=E2=80=99s talking
about,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 Trippi wrote, urging readers to contact their lawm=
akers.

Dean failed to note in his editorial that he is an adviser to McKenna,
Long & Aldridge, a global law firm that is advising the Biotechnology
Industry Organization, the influential trade group. Nor did Trippi
mention that his public relations firm handles social media projects in
a partnership with the Boston public relations company Brodeur Partners,
which also has BIO as a client.

After the Globe inquired about those ties, both Dean and Trippi said
they only advocate for causes they genuinely support, but said they
should have disclosed those relationships and would do so in the future.

Trippi, who suffers from serious complications of diabetes, noted that
he has advocated for biotech for years. But Dean said his editorial was
part of McKenna=E2=80=99s rapid-fire response to an unexpected, eleventh-ho=
ur
Senate health committee proposal (which biotech firms ultimately fought
off).

=E2=80=9CIt was a huge scramble, all hands on deck,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 Dean =
said.

For years, the Food and Drug Administration has debated ways to license
lower-cost copies of biotech drugs, a move that would slow the
acceleration of drug costs and contribute to healthcare savings across
the country. But the biotech industry is relatively new, and its drugs
are far more complex and difficult to produce than traditional
pharmaceuticals, complicating the process. With President Obama and
Democratic leaders in Congress intent on reforming healthcare this year,
momentum has built to set up a regulatory pathway for =E2=80=9Cbiogenerics.=
=E2=80=99=E2=80=99

The big question for Congress is how long companies should get exclusive
rights to their products before the generics can move in and compete.
While industry argues it needs a long monopoly period to recover its
research and development costs, the generic-drug industry, labor groups,
employers, and the powerful AARP say the system needs cheaper
alternatives quickly.

The legions of lobbyists, strategists, and legal consultants involved
include former senior aides to key lawmakers and executives. Top biotech
companies are clients of Foley Hoag, a law firm with offices in Boston
and Washington, which has deployed Nick Littlefield, former staff
director and chief counsel for Senator Edward M. Kennedy=E2=80=99s health
committee, and Paul Kim, the former deputy health counsel to the
Kennedy=E2=80=99s committee.

On the other side, the AARP, representing America=E2=80=99s elderly, spent =
more
than $4 million on lobbying in the first quarter and also ran radio ads.
Chris Jennings, a former senior health policy adviser to former
president Bill Clinton, is advising drug benefits managers, which also
favor lower costs.

Biotech won a major battle last week when Kennedy=E2=80=99s Senate health
committee gave biotech firms the 12-year protections they wanted, plus
six months for pediatric versions. The committee rejected a proposal by
Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, for a much shorter monopoly
period. After the vote, generics companies said they wouldn=E2=80=99t even
bother trying to make generic biologics because the 12-year protection
would make the enterprise unprofitable.

=E2=80=9CThe pharmaceutical industry, especially the biotech industry has a=
n
awful lot of power in the halls of Congress,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 Brown told r=
eporters. The
battle now moves to the House.

The debate does not break down along the usual partisan lines. Biotech
is seen as the economic future in Massachusetts, California, and other
blue states, creating high-paying jobs and supporting desirable
industries like higher education and medicine.

State leaders from around the country, including Governor Deval Patrick,
wrote letters to their delegations supporting a biotech-friendly bill.
CEOs have flown to Washington to drive their points home. The Globe
reported earlier this year that Amgen donated $1 million to the Edward
M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate at the University of
Massachusetts Boston, a project being developed by people close to the
senator but not Kennedy.

=E2=80=9CFor nearly 50 years, Senator Kennedy has been fighting to provide =
all
Americans, regardless of race, gender, or income, with access to
quality, affordable healthcare,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99 Kennedy=E2=80=99s spokesm=
an said in a
statement. =E2=80=9CEvery decision he makes on health policy is designed to
further that important national goal.=E2=80=99=E2=80=99

In the health committee vote last week, a number of other left-leaning
Democratic senators sided with the industry, including Patty Murray of
Washington, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Jack Reed and Sheldon
Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina. Kennedy
supported the measure by proxy.

Hagan, a freshman senator whose state is home to a biotech sector, was
assigned to the health committee this winter. Few were surprised when
she cosponsored the industry-friendly amendment. But biotech firms were
not taking chances: In the first half of this year, they poured $16,000
into her campaign account. Hagan believes the protections are necessary
to support research for new drugs.

=E2=80=9CWithout the 12-year protection, these jobs could be shifted overse=
as,=E2=80=99=E2=80=99
Hagan said in a statement to the Globe.
=C2=A9 Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

--
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International
http://www.keionline.org | mailto:james.love at keionline.org
Wk: +1.202.332.2671 | US Mobile +1.202.361.3040 | Geneva Mobile +41.76.413.=
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