How Arnold Ventures paved the road to the IRA

Enactment of the Medicare drug price negotiation program, the biggest defeat the biopharmaceutical industry has experienced in Washington, was facilitated by a sophisticated, well-funded influence campaign bankrolled by philanthropists John and Laura Arnold. The Arnolds’ drug pricing initiatives provide a textbook example of how deep-pocketed individuals can shape public policy — and the consequences of an industry losing public trust.

The Medicare drug price negotiation program and drug price inflation caps embedded in the Inflation Reduction Act represent the end of a decades-long era in which the pharmaceutical industry maintained an iron grip on Capitol Hill even as its reputation plummeted. ...