According to a noted industry publication, Big Pharma money is not backing the Republican candidate, as is traditionally the case. This election cycle pharmaceutical money is favoring the Democrat.
Kaiser Health News is reporting that the Biden campaign is raising nearly three-times the political donations from pharma-linked donors than the Trump campaign. Many believe the President’s re-election campaign has experienced the exodus of Big Pharma donors because of his move to reduce prescription drug prices for the consumer.
“Traditionally the industry tends to favor Republicans,” Sarah Bryner, the research director for the Center for Responsive Politics told reporters. “This cycle, we’re seeing that flipped.”
Even though the President has praised the products of two Big Pharma companies for hastening his recovery from COVID-19, their donation money is flowing to his opponent.
#NewOnKHN: In a year when complaints about high prescription drug prices have been overshadowed by the pandemic, donors with ties to pharma have given around $976,000 to Biden. That’s nearly three times the pharma contributions to Trump.
📝: @jayhancock1 https://t.co/0j3BSSf534
— Kaiser Health News (@KHNews) October 9, 2020
The Center for Responsive Politics reported four-fifths of the $177,000 donated to federal candidates so far by Regeneron’s employees and political action committee have gone to Democrats. Regeneron’s CEO is not only a friend of the President’s, he belongs to his private country club in Westchester, New York.
Regeneron has also received a $450 million government contract to manufacture and supply its monoclonal antibody cocktail to aid in the fight against COVID-19.
The donor employees for Gilead Sciences, the makers of remdesivir, have given approximately two-thirds of their $284,000 in political donations to Democrats, including $36,000 to directly to Biden.
And employee political donations from Eli Lilly, a company working on a treatment similar to Regeneron, total approximately $45,000 for Biden to just $13,000 to Trump.
While some in the analyst sphere believe the reason for this shift is Big Pharma hedging its bets to attain leverage in the event of a Biden win, others believe the motive behind the move is the windfall Big Pharma will receive in the re-establishment of Obamacare mandates.
“Joe Biden has Big Pharma – as well as Big Tech and big banks – in his pocket because he’s worked for them for nearly 50 years, rather than the American people,” Trump campaign spokesperson Samantha Zager told reporters.
