Gilead Spent How Much on DC Lobbyists for Hep C Drug?

(Use of this AIDS Healthcare Foundation ad is not an endorsement of their abysmal transparency policies and opposition to use of Truvada to prevent HIV transmission.)

Reporter Paul Demko knows his way around both nonprofits and the healthcare industry, and before he began writing for Modern Healthcare he plied his trade at the Chronicle of Philanthropy. We became acquainted with each other during that stint.

In early October, Demko penned an extensive look at overall healthcare lobbying in Washington with a particular focus on Gilead Sciences. One thing I learned was that a former HIV adviser to Dubya has become a lobbyist who was hired by Gilead.

Another thing was how Gilead did the soft sell in Washington about Sovaldi via a forum for Congressional staffers, showing me that such forums about Gilead's products aren't limited solely to HIV organizations.

I salute Demko and Modern Healthcare for an excellent job of following the money: 

About the same time Gilead acquired Pharmasset (manufacturer of the hepatitis C drug Sovaldi), it hired Joseph Grogan to lead its lobbying. That was the first sign that the company planned to pump up its lobbying in Washington. Grogan had held a similar post with biotechnology giant Amgen, which had a track record of influencing government policy.

Grogan joined Amgen after serving as a senior policy adviser to Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, who was FDA commissioner during the George W. Bush administration. He also had served as executive director of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, whose advisory council members included Gilead CEO John Martin.

Grogan's initial task was to ensure the experimental drug [Sovaldi] passed all its regulatory hurdles. [...] Gilead also hired some of the most influential lobbying firms in Washington.

In 2011 and 2012, the company spent just under $3 million on lobbying, according to reports. Last year, that figure increased to just over $4 million, a jump of more than 40%. And through the first two quarters of 2014, the company spent $2.6 million on lobbying, putting it on track to top $5 million for the year. [...]

But the job was far from over [after Sovaldi received FDA approval]. The $1,000-per-pill price tag on Sovaldi stirred a backlash on Capitol Hill. The company's newly acquired lobbying army swung into action. [...]

“Although Sovaldi has the potential to help people with HCV, at $1,000 per pill, its pricing has raised serious questions about the extent to which the market for this drug is operating efficiently and rationally,” the letter from [U.S. Senators] Wyden and Grassley read. [...]

[In September], Gilead hosted a forum, “Curing hepatitis C—the patient's perspective,” for legislative staffers at the Rayburn House Office Building. The event featured a hepatitis C patient; Dr. Natarajan Ravendhran, a liver disease specialist and chief of gastroenterology at St. Agnes Hospital, Baltimore; and a Gilead vice president. Ravendhran earned over $20,000 in 2013 in fees and other benefits from Gilead, according to the CMS Open Payments database.

The word went out across Capitol Hill. Roughly two-dozen individuals attended the event. “It was a relatively soft sell,” said one attendee. There was no discussion of congressional inquiries into the cost of Sovaldi or acknowledgement that there was anything controversial about the drug.

AIDS Orgs Must Disclose All Gilead Grants on Their Sites
(Originally posted at my Facebook campaign site on November 3.)

Recent hearings held by the Board of Supervisors have focused on access to Gilead's HIV drug Truvada for use as a PrEP regimen, but the politicians haven't addressed the price of this drug and Gilead's other HIV and hepatitis medicines.

At the same time, there's been tremendous cheerleading from AIDS service and advocacy organization pushing Truvada as PrEP, and I don't have a problem with that. What I do object to is how AIDS Inc has by and large not demanded lower pricing, and groups receiving Gilead donations have not disclosed financial support from the firm.

It's time to call on our HIV community organizations to create and regularly update transparency pages on their web sites fully disclosing all grants or in-kind gifts from Big Pharma and medical supply companies, and from all corporations. We need to see the amounts given, when they were made and for what purpose they will be used.

In our backyard, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation has received at least $600,000 from Gilead in recent years and their spokesman James Loduca worked for the firm handling public affairs for their HIV drugs (http://tinyurl.com/SFAF-Gilead-Loduca), while IRS 990 filings from Project Inform reveal they've accepted $417,000 from the company (http://tinyurl.com/PI-IRS990-2012 and also http://tinyurl.com/PI-IRS990-FY2013).

These two groups have collaborated to create a social marketing campaign promoting Truvada as PrEP, and like their home web sites, the campaign's site omits mention of robust grants from Gilead (http://tinyurl.com/SFAF-PI-PrEP).

SFAF publishes the BETA newsletter about HIV drug developments and a recent report in it looked at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's ad campaign opposing Truvada for prevention. Nowhere does BETA disclose SFAF received money from Gilead (http://tinyurl.com/BETA-PrEP-AHF).

In New York City, the Gay Men's Health Crisis has accepted at least $400,000 from Gilead in the past two years and GMHC's Treatment Issues newsletter has also covered Truvada and like BETA failed to disclose the Gilead grants (http://tinyurl.com/GMHC-PrEP). GMHC has also organized PrEP rallies and as far as I can determine, at them doesn't make the Gilead grants transparent to participants.

Back in 2011, SFAF, PI and GMHC signed on to an open letter (http://tinyurl.com/Truvada-Letter-2011), addressed to the FDA and Gilead urging prompt review of regulations that would approve Truvada for PrEP and they weren't the only AIDS organizations that had received Gilead money to add their group's name to the letter. Other groups include:

AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts (http://tinyurl.com/AAC-Gilead-lunch);
AIDS Foundation of Chicago (http://tinyurl.com/AFC-Gilead-grants);
AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta (http://tinyurl.com/ARCA-Gilead);
AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (http://tinyurl.com/AVAC-Gilead);
Black AIDS Institute (http://tinyurl.com/BlackAIDS-Gilead);
Fenway Health.

And these aren't the only HIV nonprofits raking in Gilead money. According to the Gilead Foundation's IRS 990 filings from 2010 through 2012 (http://tinyurl.com/Gilead-990s-GuideStar), and 2013 (http://tinyurl.com/Gilead-IRS990-2013), the following groups received robust six-figure grants:

AIDS Atlanta, $200,000;
AIDS United, $200,000;
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, $200,000;
Howard Brown Health Center, $400,000;
International AIDS Vaccine Coalition, $200,000;
LA Gay & Lesbian Community Center, $200,000;
Metro Teen AIDS DC, $400,000;
Whitman Walker Clinic, $500,000.

There are dozens of other groups that also accepted Gilead dollars, but in lesser amounts and regardless of the amount, all AIDS nonprofits must become transparent on their sites about the Gilead and all Big Pharma grants.

All medical journals now require financial and conflict of interest disclosures from authors and researchers, which accompanies all articles. We need the same transparency standard from AIDS groups.

If you're pissed off, #VotePetrelis!

Wiener Accepted Gilead's Medical Affairs VP's Donation 
By Todd Swindell and Michael Petrelis

Last month, District 8 incumbent Supervisor Scott Wiener generated lots of media attention after disclosing he's taking Truvada as part of a PrEP regimen to avert contracting HIV.

The disclosure was made in advance of a hearing he and Supervisor David Campos held at City Hall, looking at a supplemental budget allocation to the Department of Public Health in order to investigate educational and cost issues related to Truvada for use for pre-exposure prophylaxis reasons.

We wondered why these gay Supervisors waited more than two-years since the FDA approved Truvada for prevention purposes and how many sexually-transmitted HIV infections occurred in San Francisco in this period that could have been averted if the at-risk individuals had access to PrEP.

A story in the Bay Area Reporter by longtime LGBT health writer Liz Highleyman on the hearing generated a comment from John Steen asking if either Supervisor had received donations from Gilead. Steen seems unaware that such info is a few clicks away.

The SF Ethics Commission's contributions search engine (http://tinyurl.com/SF-Ethics-search-engine),shows that Wiener in 2010 during his first run for Supervisor, received $125 from Hans Reiser who is Gilead's vice president for medical affairs.

We seriously doubt that donation played any role in Wiener pushing for the DPH to receive the Truvada educational allocation, but in the interests of providing transparency between the incumbent and Gilead we're sharing the info since it was omitted from the tremendous coverage last month.