How PhRMA got blindsided by a $12 billion bill

PhRMA, the drug industry trade group, employs some 180 lobbyists to get its message across in Washington and to ensure that it’s never caught flat-footed by developments in Congress. But last year, that system failed, and a surprise development is about to cost drug makers $12 billion over a decade.

As STAT’s Nicholas Florko reports, PhRMA was unprepared for a congressional plan to force the industry to pay a larger share of a Medicare beneficiaries prescription costs. And despite millions of dollars and months of lobbying, PhRMA was unable to turn the tide, perhaps a sign that the legendarily powerful group is losing influence in Washington.

“This might well be the biggest political loss that PhRMA has suffered in a decade,” Daniel Carpenter, a professor of government at Harvard, told STAT.

Read the inside account here.