How drugmakers went from vaccine heroes to patent villains within weeks

When Joe Biden toured Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, earlier this year, his visit appeared to mark a thaw in relations between Washington and large pharmaceutical companies.

“I wanted to come here, Albert, to thank you and to thank all the workers here,” the US president told Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s chief executive, in February.

Weeks later, Bourla was being given a dressing down by Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, during a call to discuss whether the administration should back a move to suspend intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines. 

The tone of that call, followed by the decision to support a patent waver proposal at the World Trade Organization, has triggered concerns among some in the pharmaceutical industry, who fear they will lose political capital amassed during the pandemic at a crucial moment in their fight against drug pricing controls in the US.

“One day Bourla is being feted by the president for making vaccines which will help end the pandemic, the next he is being lectured by one of Biden’s senior officials for not supplying vaccines to India — even though the Pfizer vaccine hasn’t been approved there,” said one person briefed on the call. “It did shake the industry a bit.”

American drugmakers have been the target of political criticism for years, accused of fuelling the US opioid epidemic and making their treatments unaffordable for millions of Americans.

The fact that the Biden administration was willing to support the [patent] waiver shows . . . the pharma industry is not going to be as strong as it was in the past

Many in the industry hoped their response to the pandemic would help to persuade politicians and the wider public that the US benefits from having a well-funded pharmaceutical industry with strong intellectual property protections. The country has carried out one of the fastest Covid-19 vaccine rollouts in the world, largely thanks to steady supplies from Pfizer and its smaller rival Moderna.

“The Covid-19 vaccine is a proof point for the powerful combination of breakthrough science and the private sector,” said Sally Susman, chief corporate affairs officer at Pfizer.

The public agrees. Surveys conducted by The Harris Poll found that approval of the pharmaceutical industry had almost doubled from 32 per cent in January last year to 62 per cent in February this year.

But the decision to support the move at the WTO to waive international intellectual property rights on Covid vaccines suggests the Biden administration is not entirely convinced by the arguments put forward by drugmakers’ well-funded army of lobbyists. 

“The fact that the Biden administration was willing to support the waiver shows the argument has shifted and that the pharma industry is not going to be as strong as it was in the past,” said Michael Carrier, a law professor at Rutgers university in Camden, New Jersey.

The industry spends far more on lobbying than any other — more than $92m this year, according to figures compiled by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics. That is more than double the outlay from the electronics industry, which is the next heaviest spender.

It also donates liberally, and increasingly to Democrats. CRP figures show that 2020 was the first year in which the industry gave significantly more to Democratic candidates than Republican ones.

Pfizer donated $1m to Biden’s inaugural fund, though the money did not buy the kind of high-level access it would have done in previous years due to the virtual nature of many of the inaugural events.

The industry is primarily occupied by two issues in Washington: the WTO’s proposed intellectual property waiver and legislation to curb drug prices. On the former, companies are keen to limit the scope of any waiver. On the latter, they want to stop a bill that would allow the government to negotiate the prices for certain drugs prescribed to seniors covered by the publicly-funded Medicare scheme.

The industry’s most prominent voice on such issues is Steve Ubl, chief executive of industry group Phrma and a veteran Washington operator. “The Biden administration made a politically expedient decision [on the WTO waiver], but we think we are still able to lean in on other debates such as drug pricing,” he said.

Some are concerned that Ubl, a former aide to the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, is too obviously corporate and Republican to make inroads in the Democratically-controlled administration and Congress.

Instead, some say Michelle McMurry-Heath, the chief executive of the smaller Biotechnology Innovation Organization, might have more success. “Steve has been very successful for years, but Michelle is a bit more dynamic and less buttoned-up,” said one industry lobbyist.

Before rushing to do the WTO waiver, perhaps we should get our own house in order first

Those in the industry who have deep connections within the Democratic party are in strong demand, such as Susman, who worked as a senior official in the commerce department during the Clinton administration.

Another is Debra Dixon, a former chief of staff to the health secretary Xavier Becerra. Dixon works for Ferox Strategies and was recently hired by Eli Lilly, which has been criticised for raising the prices of its insulin drugs.

Dixon said the industry should focus on how therapeutics can “alleviate health disparities” when discussing drug prices.

She added: “While the US vaccine rollout has gone well, there are still people falling through the cracks. Before rushing to do the WTO waiver, perhaps we should get our own house in order first.”

Moderna, meanwhile, has hired Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as one of its external lobbying firms. Its team includes Nadeam Elshami, the former chief of staff to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Carmencita Whonder, a former aide to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader.

There are some signs that their efforts are paying off.

Earlier this month 10 Democrats in the House sent a letter to Pelosi urging her to pursue drug pricing reforms on a bipartisan basis. That missive was interpreted as a criticism of the proposal for the government to negotiate drug prices, which has little support among Republicans.

Scott Peters, the lead signatory on that letter, was the sixth-highest recipient in the House of money from the pharma industry in the last election cycle, according to the CRP.

Others in Congress also continue to champion the industry, especially those in New Jersey and Delaware, where many pharma companies have a significant presence. Industry lobbyists say they expect Chris Coons, the senator from Delaware and a longtime friend of Biden, to prove a vital ally.

Many lobbyists hope that Biden will prove receptive to the industry’s arguments, in part because he worked closely with pharmaceutical companies as vice-president while developing his “cancer moonshot” to help find a cure for the disease.

But they do not necessarily need to win the president round. With both houses of Congress finely balanced, a handful of Democratic supporters could squash the reforms being proposed by those on the left of the party.

“We don’t need many people to block HR3,” said one industry lobbyist, referring to the proposed bill that would allow the government to negotiate some drug prices. “The 10 people that signed that letter could be enough to get us what we want.”