While the pharmaceutical industry has long been influential in Washington, D.C., it is redirecting many of its lobbying resources toward states in order to achieve its goals more quickly, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal. Representatives of the drug companies’ trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, note that state legislatures move much faster than Congress, and are much easier to influence given that legislation may evolve from its beginning stages to a signed piece of legislation in under 90 days.

In 2004, the last year for which data is available from the Center for Public Integrity, drug companies spent over $44 million lobbying states. Campaign contributions from the manufacturers and their employees to state candidates have simultaneously increased, rising from $4.6 million to $8.8 million from 2000 to 2006, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. A recent campaign to make pharmacists’ switching patients from name-brand to generic epilepsy pills more difficult has used such a strategy to propose legislation in various states, bypassing expensive clinical testing required by the FDA for the rule to be considered at the national level. “We will be ready to stand up to big drug companies not just in Washington, D.C., but in every state,” said Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance.

(Source: July 20, 2007 issue of the Friday Alert, electronic newsletter of the Alliance of Retired Americans)

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