http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_30117115/election-2016-big-pharmas-70-million-tops-california

With Californians facing the busiest ballot in more than a decade, big spenders are poised to make it one of the most expensive election battles in state history — already contributing $185 million to fight over everything from sex, drugs and guns to tobacco and taxes.

The money is piling up on behalf of campaigns for 17 statewide ballot measures — the most since March 2000. And when it comes to big backers, Big Pharma is far and away the towering force.

According to figures released Monday by the nonprofit MapLight, drug companies have already poured $70 million into an effort to fight Proposition 61, which would limit the prices state agencies pay for prescription drugs.

That’s 38 percent of all the money so far invested into the various ballot measures through July 7, the Berkeley-based group reported. Some observers are predicting drug company contributions will top $100 million by Election Day.

“This is their bread and butter,” said Barbara O’Connor, director emeritus of Sacramento State’s Institute for the Study of Politics and Media, who expects the industry will invest as much money as its needs to win.

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The beneficiary of that drug company money, Californians Against the Misleading Rx Measure, says they got an early start on raising campaign cash. “As the other campaigns start kicking into high gear, they will start raising more,” said Kathy Fairbanks, the no campaign’s spokeswoman.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the measure’s sponsor, has raised about $10 million, according to president Michael Weinstein.

“Maybe $100 million can convince people to vote against what is in their own best interest,” said Weinstein. “From our point of view, today, tomorrow or 10 years from now, justice will prevail on drug pricing.”

With tens of millions on hand, drug makers fight state efforts to force down prices

Drug makers are sick and tired of coming under attack for high prices.

And they’re spending tens of millions to try to make it stop.

“We’re under unprecedented pressure because there really is profound misunderstanding out there,” Acorda Therapeutics CEO Ron Cohen, who chairs the industry trade group Biotechnology Innovation Organization, told a crowd at BIO’s conference here this week.

“Together we’re going to fight back, and we’re going to win,” Jim Greenwood, the CEO of BIO, said in his keynote address.

Bills that would have required drug companies to justify, explain, or even cap their prices have faltered in about a dozen states in recent months. Last week, however, brought two blows to the industry: Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin Drug signed into law a transparency act that requires drug makers to justify price hikes. Similar legislation passed in the California state Senate.

Meanwhile, the industry is girding for another California fight this November over a ballot measure that seeks to cap some drug prices. A similar measure is in the works in Ohio. And the industry fears such ballot measures could pop up elsewhere.

But drug makers aren’t responding by cutting prices  — or even by keeping them stable.