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This story was originally published by OpenSecrets.

The 17 pharmaceutical companies anchoring TrumpRx, the White House’s new prescription drug-pricing program, poured more than $130 million into federal lobbying in 2025 — a nearly 23% surge that outpaced the broader industry as the plan was being shaped behind the scenes.Those companies accounted for more than a quarter of the record $457.3 million spent on lobbying last year across the pharmaceutical and health product industry. And while newly filed 2026 first-quarter reports show no slowdown — industry-wide spending topped $131 million, a 5.7% year-over-year increase — the most consequential lobbying push came in 2025, ahead of TrumpRx’s February launch.

“All I can say is that they’re spending a ton of money,” Olivier Wouters, an associate professor at Brown University who has researched the industry’s lobbying efforts, told OpenSecrets.

Among those participants in President Donald Trump’s flagship “most favored nation” drug-pricing initiative, the 2025 spending spree was nearly universal: 15 increased their year-over-year totals, and eight – including Regeneron, which didn’t join until April 23 – boosted spending by at least 25%, an escalation that coincided with the plan’s final negotiations.

The two companies with the steepest increases market blockbuster medications that saw deep price cuts in 2026.

Bristol Myers Squibb, maker of the anti-clotting drug Eliquis, nearly doubled its lobbying spending — an 84% jump to more than $10 million, one of the sharpest increases by any company in any sector. The surge came as Eliquis, which generated $13.3 billion in worldwide revenue in 2024, became subject to a 56% negotiated discount for Medicare Part D enrollees, dropping to $231 for a 30-day supply.

Big Pharma Front Groups Muddle Debate Over Drug Prices, Patient Advocates Say

And AstraZeneca hiked its federal lobbying spending by more than 55% to nearly $5.8 million as the negotiated price of its diabetes and heart- and kidney-disease drug Farxiga — an $8.4 billion product in 2025 — was slashed 68% to $178.50 under the Inflation Reduction Act.

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TrumpRx offers brand-name drug discounts indexed to lower international prices. In exchange for offering these most favored nation rates to cash-paying customers, the administration granted participating drugmakers multi-year exemptions from new import tariffs.

Citing national security concerns, Trump issued a presidential proclamation April 2 imposing a 100% tariff on imported patented drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients from countries without a qualifying security agreement. The proclamation also created a carve-out for companies that enter most-favored-nation pricing and onshoring agreements — core components of the TrumpRx platform — allowing them to pay a 0% tariff through Jan. 20, 2029, a concession potentially worth billions.

Another function of the program allows manufacturers to sell high-volume medications, including popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, directly to patients while bypassing insurance gatekeepers.

Health care has long dominated Washington’s K Street, as the lobbying industry is known. In 2025, 2,632 clients lobbied........

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