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# PhRMA Lobbying Influencing Administration: Analysis
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/phrma-lobbying-influencing-administration-analysis/
- Published: 2019-07-23T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T01:39:34.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5144597

Restore Public Trust, a self-described non-partisan public interest group, says lobbying spending disclosures for the first half of 2019 show that the drug industry is doubling down to leverage its influence over policymakers. Restore Public Trust director **Lizzy Price** [says](https://restorepublictrust.org/phrma-spent-record-amounts-while-trump-and-azar-fail-to-protect-americans-from-high-drug-prices/?ref=fdaweb.com) that “HHS secretary **Alex Azar** and **President Trump** are failing to protect Americans from the drug industry’s bottom line. The Trump administration is stacked with pharmaceutical insiders like Secretary Azar, while the drug industry is dead set on spending record-breaking sums to ensure efforts to lower the price of prescription drugs are quashed. How can Americans focus on getting ahead when their lives are consumed by trying to afford the ever-increasing prices of lifesaving drugs they need to survive?”

Price says the new disclosures show: 

- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America spent a record $16.1 million on lobbying in the first six months of 2019;
- Johnson & Johnson spent $2.2 million this quarter, nearly 2-1/2 times what it spent in the comparable period in 2018;
- Lilly spent $2.3 million on lobbying in the first half of 2019; and
- Allergan spent $1 million lobbying Congress, nearly three times what it spent during the same period last year.

A Restore Public Trust [Web site](https://www.bigpharmasbestfriends.org/?ref=fdaweb.com) lists 16 Trump administration officials who it says have made almost $6 million from the drug industry, including Azar, former FDA commissioner **Scott Gottlieb**, and acting FDA commissioner **Ned Sharpless**.