Lobbying giant PhRMA funneled millions of dollars to “dark money” political groups last year as it battled drug pricing reforms, tilting to the Republican side but also making large donations to Democrat-aligned groups that don’t publicly disclose their donors, according to a new tax filing.
In the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) tax filing for the 2023 calendar year, which the group delivered to Sludge by mail, one of the group’s largest contributions was $3.5 million given to the American Action Network (AAN), the conservative dark money advocacy group that the previous year spent millions on ads torching Democrat-proposed drug price reforms.
The Republican-operative led AAN also functions as the dark money affiliate of the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC that spends enormously to elect House Republicans. PhRMA has been a major donor to AAN, giving $38 million since the Citizens United decision that helped clear the way for unlimited super PAC spending in elections, the cross-partisan reform group Issue One tallied. During the 2024 election cycle, AAN sent more than $40 million to CLF, which spent on campaign expenditures like attack ads against House Democratic candidates.
Overall, PhRMA received more than $467.3 million in revenue in 2023, a step down from the $565.6 million the prior year and an amount closer to its 2018 revenue. The trade group reported making $32.9 million in grants and payments, also a step down from the year before.
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PhRMA’s largest grant last year was to We Work For Health (WWFH), a drug industry advocacy group created by PhRMA and its member companies that in recent years has described itself as a “grassroots initiative,” giving more than $6.3 million. Sludge previously reported on documents from a public relations firm showing that the group aimed to mobilize pharmaceutical companies’ employees in advocacy campaigns. The group’s figures were cited by House Republicans in 2022 in a document that echoed PhRMA’s talking points against Medicare price negotiations, but WWFH's large amount of funding from PhRMA is not mentioned on its website. WWFH opposes the IRA negotiations, calling the program “flawed” and saying Congress should instead focus on incentivizing pharmaceutical research.
PhRMA gave nearly $1.6 million in 2023 to the secretive advocacy group Center Forward, a bipartisan group with roots in the Blue Dog Coalition of House Democrats.
