Drugmakers form new group to lobby on impact of Medicare drug price negotiations

STAT News – Wednesday, August 13, 2025
By John Wilkerson

WASHINGTON — A handful of drug companies have formed a group to present lawmakers with research on what the industry sees as the negative impacts of Medicare drug price negotiations, according to lobbying records.

The group is called the IRA Watchdog after the Inflation Reduction Act, which directed Medicare to negotiate the prices for some drugs. Its members are Merck, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb Company, and Eli Lilly, according to lobbying disclosure records. The group describes itself as a “coalition analyzing the impact of Medicare Drug Price Negotiation on patients.”

Drugmakers opposed Medicare drug price negotiation because they consider it government price-setting that discourages innovation. However, they support some of the other changes in the law, including caps on out-of-pocket spending for seniors.

The IRA Watchdog is not a stand-alone lobbying organization. It’s housed in the firm DLA Piper, and its two lobbyists were staffers for former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who while in Congress championed the biotech sector, a key driver of the economy in his home state. Burr is a senior policy adviser at DLA Piper and the chair of its health policy strategic consulting practice.

DLA Piper has published several papers on the impact of Medicare drug price negotiation on a number of issues, including the number of Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans available to seniors, their premiums, and drug formularies. The firm also has researched rising copays for diabetes medications and the decline in access to certain rare disease treatments, both of which it attributes to Medicare price negotiations.

The IRA included several provisions that affect prescription drug prices and coverage in Medicare. In addition to directing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, it limited seniors’ monthly insulin costs and redesigned Part D by capping enrollees’ annual out-of-pocket costs, cutting the federal government’s share of costs above that cap, and making insurers and drug companies pay a greater share of seniors’ costs above the cap.

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