Press Releases | May 27, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week, Patients For Affordable Drugs released a new report, The Rampant Reach of Pharma’s Hidden Hand, uncovering the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to fund, influence — and in some cases, fully operate — front groups that claim to represent the interests of patients while working to protect drug company profits.
Each of the six industry-backed organizations claims to advocate for patients — but their real mission is clear: Protect drug industry profits and delay or derail reforms that would bring prices down. If these groups truly advocated for patients, they’d listen when 90% of Americans are demanding more action to lower drug prices.
“When your board is stacked with industry insiders, your primary funding comes from pharma, and your talking points mirror those of drug lobbyists, you’re not a patient advocacy organization — you’re a PR operation,” said Merith Basey, Executive Director of Patients For Affordable Drugs, which doesn’t accept funding from any organization that profits from the development or distribution of prescription drugs.
Here’s what we’re reading in the news:
Common Dreams: Report Exposes Big Pharma Front Groups Posing as Patient Advocates
Jake Johnson | May 19, 2025
“The new analysis by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now (P4AD), which stressed that it doesn’t take money from organizations that profit from the production or distribution of prescription medications, spotlights six groups: the Alliance for Aging Research, the American Action Forum, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, the Council for Affordable Health Coverage, the Pacific Research Institute, and Seniors 4 Better Care.”
“The featured organizations, according to P4AD, ‘are posing as independent patient or policy groups while acting as mouthpieces for the drug industry’s agenda—all while raking in pharma cash, fighting Medicare negotiation, and pushing misleading claims to block reforms.’”
“Seniors 4 Better Care, for instance, is a shell group of the American Prosperity Alliance, the president of which ‘has a history of lobbying for the healthcare industry, including for organizations at the Healthcare Association of New York and insurance providers such as MVP Healthcare,’ P4AD’s report observes.”
“Earlier this year, Seniors 4 Better Care bankrolled an ad that directly urged President Donald Trump to end the ‘pill penalty,’ a label the pharmaceutical industry has used to describe the treatment of small-molecule prescription drugs under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare price negotiation provisions.”
Truthout: Big Pharma Front Groups Muddle Debate Over Drug Prices, Patient Advocates Say
Mike Ludwig | May 21, 2025
“‘Policies in the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] include free vaccines for people on Medicare, and there’s also a provision that looks at curbing drug company price gouging by penalizing drug companies for increasing prices faster than the rate of inflation,’ Basey said.”
“PhRMA – the industry trade association for drug companies – spent $52 million on lobbying and funding for groups fighting against the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and other reforms, according to an analysis by Politico. As lawmakers and Trump’s new administrators mulled over implementation of the law’s Medicare provisions, PhRMA spent nearly $13 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2025 alone, more than the group has ever spent in a single quarter. Drug companies filed multiple lawsuits against Medicare negotiations over drug prices, but Basey said Trump’s Justice Department has defended the law so far.”
“‘We know ultimately that polling shows that Americans are very aware that pharmaceutical corporations are behind the high price of drugs, so [drug companies] have to find alternative ways to mislead the public,’ Basey said. ‘When groups have innocuous sounding names like Seniors 4 Better Care, if you don’t do your homework, you might assume they are a group out to support seniors.’”
The Lever: The Pharma Puppets Keeping Your Drug Prices High
Helen Santoro | May 22, 2025
“There’s clearly a revolving door between many of these groups and between pharma,” said Merith Basey, executive director of Patients For Affordable Drugs, which does not receive funding from pharmaceutical groups. The groups “tend to then represent the interests of pharma and their shareholders and not of patients,” more than half of whom are struggling to afford their prescription medications.
In effect, these organizations function as industry front groups, echoing the positions of their funders while posing as credible advocacy groups. This includes attacking the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act through public comments, court filings, and lobbying. The law, which was strongly opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, granted Medicare the authority to negotiate lower prices for a list of expensive drugs.
A 2017 report found that more than 80 percent of the top 104 patient advocacy organizations with revenues of at least $7.5 million accept funding from drug and medical device companies — and experts say such largesse likely shapes their stances on pharmaceutical-related policies. Meanwhile, prices for generic and brand-name drugs are almost three times higher in the United States than in other countries.
The names of the identified front groups are “very intentionally misleading,” said Basey. “That’s what they do best, it’s sort of smoke and mirrors. But actually, you scratch the surface and see, well, who are they actually representing?”
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Patients For Affordable Drugs is the only national patient advocacy organization focused exclusively on policies that lower prescription drug prices. We empower and mobilize patients by amplifying their experiences with high drug prices to hold those in power to account and fight to shape and achieve system-changing policies that make prescription drugs affordable for all people in the United States. P4AD does not accept funding from organizations that profit from the development and distribution of drugs. To learn more, visit PatientsForAffordableDrugs.org.