A “shadowy” drug pricing advocacy organization that made its first appearance this week has proved to be backed by a Republican lobbying firm.

According to Stat News, the Alliance to Protect Medical Innovation announced its goal was to “help educate policymakers and the public about medical breakthroughs developed by the biopharmaceutical industry.” The report adds that the new group's “About Us” section on its website describes it as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit.

A followup from Stat News says that the group, which is outspokenly defending high drug prices and criticizing advocates for lower drug prices as well as pharmacy middlemen, has already been called a “dark money organization” for its lack of transparency. The group's website is asserting that claims insurers and pharmacy benefit managers are pushing “short-sighted policies that would disrupt the development of the cures and medicines that patients depend on.”

The website is also populated with “pharma-friendly answers to a number of hot-button drug pricing questions,” Stat notes. “Whoever is behind the group also seems to have a grudge against the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which funds drug pricing watchdog groups like the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, Patients for Affordable Drugs, and I-MAK.”

APMI has admitted to receiving some “seed money from people inside the [drug] industry,” and the lobbying group, CGCN, which does both lobbying and communications, has said that APMI is its client and that it is helping with the new group's rollout.

The advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs has laid APMI's financing at the feet of PhRMA, but the report says that both APMI and PhRMA have denied having any financial connection.

The brand drug lobby BIO, which, according to the report, has a number of members in common with APMI, has said that it's joining APMI as one of its first members. The report quotes BIO spokesman Brian Newell in a statement saying, “Innovation and bad public policy cannot coexist. That's an important message often neglected in the debate about health care costs, and that's precisely the message this organization will help deliver.”

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