A new group formed by top drug manufacturers is seeking to stop the expansion of Medicare drug price negotiations, lobbying against a Biden-era program that is gaining momentum under the Trump administration.
The group, which includes
The main goal is to create analytical reports that could encourage the government to halt any plans to expand the program before fully understanding its current impact, according to the firm. The drug industry has struggled in its fight against the program—grappling with President Donald Trump’s efforts to double down on negotiations, while suffering recent back-to-back losses in lawsuits challenging the plan.
“Before any expansion is made, such as expanding the number of drugs or using new criteria to set the price of drugs, you should really make sure that you know what’s happening already with the existing program,” said Kirsten Axelsen, a senior policy adviser at DLA Piper who has led the IRA Watchdog’s analytical reports.
“We got this idea to look at the publicly available data with the aim of really monitoring,” she said in an interview. “That’s why I call it the ‘watchdog.’”
DLA Piper disclosed the new group in lobbyingrecords earlier this month, including one covering federal lobbying activity during the second quarter of this year, even though such reports were due July 21.
DLA Piper reported it received $20,000 in lobbying fees in the second quarter and disclosed lobbying Congress on the “impact of Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program on patients,” according to the filings to Congress. DLA said in a statement that it filed the report after the deadline because it wasn’t clear until after the second quarter had ended that anyone at the firm had met the threshold to trigger a lobbying disclosure.
Former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who was ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions panel, is now a lobbyist at DLA Piper and chairs the firm’s health policy strategic practice. He was not listed as among the firm’s lobbyists for the new group, but two of his former Senate health policy aides, Margaret Martin and Rachel Portman, were.
Burr’s lobbying clients this year also include the drug and biotech industry’s long influential lobbying arms—the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, lobbying disclosures show.
Merck, Lilly, and Bristol Myers did not respond to requests for comment. AstraZeneca deferred to DLA Piper for comment.
Drug Plans, Premiums
The group’s mission differs from PhRMA and BIO’s lobbying efforts.
Those two chief industry groups have been on the front lines before Congress lobbying for “fixes” in the Inflation Reduction Act—urging lawmakers to eliminate a provision that outlines when medicines are selected for price cuts and clarifying what types of drugs can be pulled for the program.
IRA Watchdog, however, plans to deeply examine publicly available data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which implements the program, and elsewhere on how patients are affected by the law.
“The vast majority of our effort is focused on the analytics, and we didn’t see anybody, including CMS, publicly reporting at this level of granularity,” Axelsen said. “This data is hard to work with, so we are investing in this kind of information.”
The group produced reports on access to prescription drug plans and premiums, formulary management practices, copays for diabetes medicines, and access to certain rare disease treatments.
In one report analyzing Medicare drug plans and premiums in 2024 compared with 2021, the group found that while Part D plan premium growth has been modest on average in 2024 relative to the prior period, there were differences in premiums, plans available, and growth between plan types and in different areas of the country.
A separate study examining how the program poses Part D drug access challenges found that fewer drugs are available on formulary in 2025 compared with last year.
Axelsen said the group is preparing maps and analysis of various US states showing how premiums and number of plans differ by county. The analysis found that, on average, there are fewer plans available in more rural areas and premiums are higher in the available plans.
Another Strategy
The formation of IRA Watchdog has gained opposition from patient advocacy groups that find it to be another ploy in a largely unsuccessful game plan to fight off the negotiations.
“Once again, we see pharmaceutical companies creating misleading front groups to avoid meaningful negotiations on drug prices,” said Bill Sweeney, senior vice president of government affairs at AARP.
Bristol Myers, AstraZeneca, and Merck disclosed their biggest federal lobbying spends to date in the second quarter of this year, as the new group started lobbying, congressional filings show. So far this year, the four companies combined shelled out a total of almost $22.4 million on federal lobbying with $14.3 million of that in the second quarter, according to disclosures.
The industry’s lobbyists also appeared to be walking a tightrope earlier this year as Trump and his team started to move more decisively against the sector than during his first term.
“It’s been trying every trick in the book to roll back that progress—pouring billions into lobbying and filing lawsuits that have repeatedly failed in court,” said Merith Basey, executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs.
Meanwhile, the formation of IRA Watchdog fuels encouragement to defend the negotiation program, other advocacy groups say.
“It’s a big pharma front,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. ”We are aggressively working to defend and expand Medicare price negotiation.”
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