US drug lobbyists "losers" in 2007

In an end of year review of the US lobbying sector, the Washington Post, has claimed that the pharmaceutical industry was a net loser in the struggle to promote positive legislative initiatives while hampering negative ones during 2007. With both the House of Representatives and the Senate controlled by the Democratic party, but a Republican president with veto powers, the Posts notes, however, that the year was essentially marked by almost all major legislative efforts being blocked.

The biggest victory for drugmakers came with the blocking of efforts by the Democrats to impose direct price negotiations between the Department of Health and Human Services and drugmakers for products paid for under the Medicare Part D prescription drug program for senior citizens (Marketletters passim). According to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the proposed "negotiations" would have amounted to back-door price controls. In the event, the proposals were unable to overcome the requirement that 60 out of the 100 Senators demand an immediate vote, to say nothing of the two-thirds (67 votes) required to overrule a likely veto by President George W Bush.

The big defeat for research-based drugmakers in 2007 came in the area of patent reform, where a coalition of software companies and financial institutions pressed for changes that, the pharmaceutical sector fears, will lower the deterrent aspect of patent infringement law suits. In particular, the reduction of likely damages to the economic impact of the alleged patent violation, was opposed by innovative firms (Marketletter September 24, 2007).