Pharma’s out pressing the flesh in Washington

As lawmakers wait to find out how a new drug pricing bill would affect the federal budget, a few familiar pharmaceutical faces are making the rounds in the Capitol.

Stephen Ubl, head of PhRMA, and Dr. Giovanni Caforio, the Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO who will soon become the group’s chairman, were spotted in the Senate basement yesterday. Their presence coincides with some closed-door briefings on the budget impact of a drug pricing bill still under development in the Senate Finance Committee. And it won’t have come as a surprise to at least one Democratic senator.

“While the budget office is still doing its analyses, you’ve got the pharmaceutical lobby all over Capitol Hill buttonholing senators, telling them that if they do anything to hold down prices for consumers and taxpayers, that that’s going to be the end of Western civilization,” Sen. Ron Wyden said earlier this week.

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