# PhRMA The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America is [[Big Pharma]]'s main trade association and one of the most consistently effective [[Lobbying]] operations in Washington. Led since 2015 by CEO Steve Ubl, it represents the large brand-name drugmakers (members have included [[Pfizer]], [[Eli Lilly]], Merck, and most of the majors) and functions as the industry's collective political weapon — the entity that turns individual companies' pricing interests into durable statutory architecture. ## Track Record PhRMA's fingerprints are on most of the structural wins documented at [[Big Pharma]]: the 2003 Medicare Part D non-negotiation clause (its lead negotiator, Rep. Billy Tauzin, famously left Congress to run PhRMA at a then-record salary — the [[Revolving Door]] at trade-association scale), two decades of blocked importation and price-control bills, and the user-fee regimes that fund FDA review. Its first major structural loss in a generation was the [[Inflation Reduction Act]]'s Medicare negotiation authority (2022), which it has fought in court ever since. ## Spending PhRMA's own lobbying outlays hit records in consecutive years — about $31 million in 2024 and $37.9 million in 2025 — atop the broader pharmaceutical sector's ~$388 million (2024). Beyond direct lobbying, it funds patient-advocacy front groups and state-level dark-money campaigns against pricing ballot measures, the astroturf layer covered at [[Dark Money]]. ## Current Posture In the MAHA era PhRMA fights on two fronts simultaneously: defending the IRA-era pricing battlefield against negotiation expansion, while accommodating the [[Most-Favored-Nation Drug Pricing Deals]] (Pfizer, September 2025; Lilly and Novo Nordisk, November 2025; nine more in December) — deals that buy individual members tariff relief while leaving the association's structural priorities — patents, FDA user fees, and the blame-shift onto [[Pharmacy Benefit Managers]] that paid off in the February 2026 PBM reform law — untouched or advanced. The pattern confirms the hub thesis: MAHA attacks pharma's products; nobody in power is attacking PhRMA's machinery. ## Connections - [[Big Pharma]] — Hub page; PhRMA is its institutional arm - [[Lobbying]] / [[Dark Money]] / [[Revolving Door]] — Mechanisms - [[Inflation Reduction Act]] — The structural loss it litigates against - [[Pfizer]] / [[Eli Lilly]] — Marquee members and MFN dealmakers