Richard Burr’s new lobbying gig

By Katherine Ellen Foley and David Lim

With Megan R. Wilson and Caitlin Oprysko

Former Sen. Richard Burr has a new role on K Street at law and lobbying firm DLA Piper. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

BURR HEADS OUT TO K STREET — Former Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), who was the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has joined law and lobbying firm DLA Piper, report Megan and Caitlin.

Burr, who retired last month after nearly three decades on Capitol Hill, will lead the firm’s health policy strategic consulting practice and serve as a principal policy adviser in its regulatory and government affairs practice.

He’s bringing with him Margaret Martin, the Senate HELP Committee’s former senior adviser of health policy, and Michael Sorensen, who served as his director of operations.

Some of DLA Piper’s health lobbying clients include B. Braun Medical, a Canadian pharmaceutical and medical device company, and Illumina, the leading maker of gene-sequencing machines used in the research and development of diagnostic tests and drugs.

Burr said he wants to use his new platform to help companies navigate the federal government and push the federal government to keep up with technology. (A former member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he’s also keeping his security clearance, he said.)

Burr was a champion of reforming the FDA, including sponsoring the measure that modernized the agency while serving in the House and key in the development of ARPA-H, the Biden administration’s new research agency.

He has also advocated for pandemic preparedness — even before it was cool — and sponsored the original Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act in 2006. The measure, which must be revisited every five years, is up for reauthorization in September.

Although advocates worry that Covid-19 has politicized further pandemic measures, Burr told Megan and Caitlin the reauthorization “should be fairly easy to get across the goal line.”

He’s required by ethics rules to abstain from lobbying his former colleagues for two years. Although he’s allowed to lobby the executive branch, he doesn’t have immediate plans to do so, he said.

Burr plans to give speeches on the PAHPA reauthorization “that might give [lawmakers] some insight as to how I see it.”

He’s the latest in a group of newly departed members to go to K Street. Former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) has become a strategic adviser to the Children’s Hospital Association. Former Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) just landed at law and lobbying firm Arnold & Porter.

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TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, Adam Cancryn tells Ben Leonard about his exit interview with David Kessler, who reflected on nearly three years of fighting a pandemic as President Joe Biden’s chief science officer — and the political fallout. Plus, Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), co-chair of the Telehealth Caucus, on how technology can become a bigger part of health care delivery.

Sen. Ron Wyden is resisting the pharmaceutical industry's push to extend exemptions from Medicare drug negotiation for certain drugs. | AP Photo

WYDEN: PHARMA FRIENDLY IRA TWEAKS NOT OK — Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) shot down one of the top legislative priorities for the pharmaceutical industry on Monday, describing its push to align the number of years small molecule drugs are exempt from Medicare drug negotiation with the Inflation Reduction Act’s longer period for biologics as unacceptable.

“This is PhRMA coming back with its regular game plan to water down consumer protections,” Wyden said. “Anybody that wants to water down the consumer protection provisions that we won after this titanic battle is going to have to run over me.”

Last week, the incoming board chair of PhRMA, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, said it is a top priority of the industry to push for legislation that would extend how long those drugs are exempt from nine to 13 years, which he argued “creates an unintended long-term innovation distortion.”

"My belief is our industry, when we come together, to really focus on a topic and have a very clear compelling policy case and a relatively small payfor from a congressional standpoint, that we can make it happen,” Narasimhan said during Novartis’ earnings call. “That’s going to be our total focus as a sector in the U.S.”

BIDEN PLANS SOTU PUSH FOR UNIVERSAL INSULIN CAP — President Joe Biden will call for expanding a new cap on insulin prices to all Americans as part of his State of the Union address, the White House said Monday. Biden has support from Wyden, who said Monday that he will push to extend the IRA’s insulin provisions into the private market this Congress.

Democrats had initially planned to pass a universal $35-a-month insulin price cap last year as part of the IRA, which was passed along party lines last August. But the policy was scaled back after Republicans successfully challenged its inclusion.

Since then, Democrats have vowed to continue to push for its passage, arguing that it’s broadly popular and crucial to ensuring that people can afford essential medicines.

“When Medicare is making these judgments, they actually use as a reference point the private sector and the government because otherwise you’ll have cost shifting and the like,” Wyden told reporters during a press call. “So we’re going to push very hard in this session to extend those insulin protections to the private sector.”

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KESSLER: ‘WE HAVE TO DO BETTER ON DISINFORMATION’ — David Kessler, the former FDA official who recently stepped down as President Biden’s chief science adviser, told POLITICO’s Adam Cancryn that he wished he could have sat down on-air with conservative cable television host Tucker Carlson.

In his first extended interview since leaving the government, Kessler said he wished he had an opportunity to discuss misinformation around Covid-19 and vaccines. “At the end of the day, I think we believe in rationality and we can find some common ground. There’s always an ability to do that, and maybe we can get back to that,” he said.

“We have to do a better job on disinformation because this virus is not done with us yet,” Kessler added. “The virus is still going to evolve … But I think it is unlikely — not impossible — that its virulence will increase dramatically.”

TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS DEPARTS PhRMA — Generics manufacturer Teva Pharmaceuticals has left the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Megan reports.

Teva remains a member of the Association for Accessible Medicines, a trade group that represents generic drugmakers. It is the second company to leave PhRMA in recent months. In December, POLITICO first reported that AbbVie did not renew its membership with the association.

WORLD BANK ESTABLISHES FINANCING FOR PREVENTING FUTURE PANDEMICS — The World Bank’s new Pandemic Fund announced Friday it is gauging interest in $300 million in financing for developing countries to better prepare for and respond to future pandemics, POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reports.

This marks the first time countries will receive World Bank financing specifically for preventing, preparing for and responding to disease outbreaks. The Pandemic Fund is the first World Bank campaign to attempt to build on the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For STAT, Marion Renault details the history of paramedics’ mistreatment of Black people in police custody.

Renowned AIDS researcher Jeffrey Parsons-Hietikko used research grant funding to support expensive personal leisure activities, Jack Stripling reports for The Washington Post.

Reps. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) spearheaded a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure co-signed by 72 of their colleagues urging CMS to reconsider its national coverage determination of anti-amyloid antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease.

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is reviewing an economically significant proposed rule on medications for the treatment of opioid use disorder from the HHS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The American Hospital Association met with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Monday to discuss a proposed rule from the EPA for emission standards on factories that use ethylene oxide to sterilize products. Earthjustice is slated to meet with OIRA today to discuss the regulation under review. Stop Sterigenics is scheduled to meet with OIRA on Wednesday.

JOIN TUESDAY TO HEAR FROM MAYORS AROUND AMERICA: 2022 brought in a new class of mayors leading “majority minority” cities, reshaping who is at the nation’s power tables and what their priorities are. Join POLITICO to hear from local leaders on how they’re responding to being tested by unequal Covid-19 outcomes, upticks in hate crimes, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, inflation and a potential recession. REGISTER HERE.

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