Pfizer Spending Big Bucks in the Beltway

It's not surprising that health care interests are at the top of the list of big spenders in Washington this year. Insurers, drug companies, doctors, hospitals and anyone else in the field stand to lose if page 478 of a reform bill isn't worded just right.

What is striking is the amount being spent. Take Pfizer, which spent almost $12 million in the first half of the year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In six months time, Pfizer almost matched what it spent for all of last year and is on pace to eclipse the $13.8 million spent in 2007, it’s biggest lobbying year on record, the center's figures show.

Pfizer, the world's biggest drug maker, and its rivals want to make sure health reform won't include anything that allows the government to negotiate medicine prices. The drug industry already pledged to cut $80 billion over 10 years from the government's tab for Medicare prescriptions. While other drug companies are stepping up their spending in Washington, Pfizer is throwing the most money at the issue.

“Individual companies are on track to have record years for 2009,” says Dave Levinthal, a spokesman for the Washington-based watchdog group. “It’s indicative of what’s at stake (for the companies), and this is very high."

Pfizer paid at least nine law firms and lobbying organizations in the first half of this year, including Bingham McCutchen LLP, Foley Hoag LLP, Patton Boggs LLP and Ogilvy Government Relations.

“We are committed to making our voice heard and to be constructively engaged in our nation’s health care debate," Pfizer spokeswoman Kristen E. Neese says in a statement.

Drug makers spent heavily in 2007 as Congress debated a bill that extended fees on pharmaceutical companies. The fees are used to fund government reviews of new medicines.