Hundreds of Lobbyists Try to Clawback Medicare Drug Price Negotiations, Win Trump’s Favor
Big Pharma and its allies have taken corporate influence in Washington to new heights, hiring more than 500 lobbyists this year in an attempt to pass three bills that undermine Medicare drug price negotiations, according to a new Public Citizen report.
- The ORPHAN Cures Act, passed in July 2025, will delay and exempt some of the most profitable drugs – including cancer treatments – from negotiations, representing tens of billions in annual Medicare spending.
- The EPIC Act and MINI Act, if passed, would lengthen the already long delay period before small molecule drugs are eligible for negotiation — effectively excluding many medicines from negotiations entirely or shortening the period patients have access to lower negotiated prices to only one or two years.
Lobbyist hires by Big Pharma and its allies outnumbered public interest lobbyists on the Hill opposing the 3 harmful bills by over 20-to-one.
In addition to Republicans including ORPHAN Cures in their Big Ugly Bill, one of President Trump’s recent executive orders suggests Big Pharma’s lobbying efforts on EPIC are working. In April, Trump issued an executive order titled “Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First”, which essentially endorses the EPIC Act, a bill that would raise drug costs for patients and taxpayers by billions of dollars.
“Members of Congress must reject the demands of pharma lobbyists and instead work to make prescription drugs more affordable,” said Steve Knievel, Public Citizen Access to Medicines Advocate. “Instead of handing drug corporations billions of dollars by helping them evade price negotiations through measures like the ORPHAN Cures Act, EPIC Act and MINI Act, Congress should pass legislation to empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices on all costly medicines and allow all patients to access lower, negotiated prices, even if they don’t have Medicare.
The prices for the 15 drugs negotiated by Medicare with pharmaceutical companies is expected to be announced in November.