PhRMA is swarmed over 'Medicare for All' 

The lobbying organization’s nondescript Washington, D.C., headquarters was the site of a protest yesterday not against high drug prices or thwarting generics. Instead, the roughly 200 demonstrators had come to talk about “Medicare for All.”

As STAT’s Nicholas Florko reports, activists accused PhRMA — and the drug industry at large — of standing in the way of the reform effort now gaining steam, much like the insurance industry whose very existence is threatened by it. The rising cost of health care is the “direct result of the greed of insurance and pharma corporations represented by groups like PhRMA,” advocates said.

Coverage of the increasingly popular “Medicare for All” push has largely focused on the world of payers and providers, and so too have activists. But Wall Street, like the protesters outside PhRMA, see a connection to the drug industry, and biopharma stock prices have slumped in recent weeks.

PhRMA, which declined to comment on the protest, happens to be flying about 60 industry researchers to D.C. today for meetings with lawmakers “on their efforts to advance new treatments and cures,” according to a statement.

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