Top Drug-Industry Lobbyist to Step Down After 2020 Election

(Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Congressman James Greenwood plans to step down as chief executive officer of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization following next year’s elections.

Greenwood, 68, will leave the trade and lobbying organization at the beginning of 2021 after serving in its top post for 15 years. BIO, as the group is known, represents some 1,000 biopharmaceutical companies ranging from pharmaceutical bellwethers like Pfizer Inc. to smaller drugmakers such as Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Greenwood plans to remain in his post through what is expected to be a contentious election cycle where health care and drug pricing will be central issues. He will assist in the search for his successor, said Rich Masters, BIO’s executive vice president for public affairs.

“This is a critical moment for our industry as our companies take a beating in the court of public opinion,” said Greenwood in a statement Tuesday. “I will continue my full-throated advocacy to ensure our elected officials do not kill innovation in a populist furor and prevent our scientists from delivering a new generation of genomic cures.”

Greenwood is leading a charge in Washington to limit Medicare recipients’ out-of-pocket drug costs. BIO had spent more than $6 million on lobbying this year, according to a September tally from the Center for Responsive Politics. The health-care sector has allocated more funds to lobbying efforts this year than any other industry.

The ground on which the industry’s lobbyists are fighting on “has changed substantially with Trump’s election,” said Ian Spatz, a senior adviser to Manatt Health, where he consults with pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy-benefit managers and health plans.

News of Greenwood’s planned departure was reported earlier Tuesday by Politico.

Prior to joining BIO, Greenwood served as a Republican Congressman in Pennsylvania’s eighth district from 1993 to 2005, during which he was a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He was also a member of a group of GOP moderates known as the Tuesday Group.

Greenwood succeeded BIO’s founding president Carl Feldbaum in 2005. As BIO’s second-ever leader, the former Congressman oversaw the organization’s expansion. The group now has 176 employees and an $85 million operating budget.

To contact the reporter on this story: Riley Griffin in New York at rgriffin42@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net, Timothy Annett

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