GSK leaves biotech trade group BIO

GSK is leav­ing the bio­phar­ma trade group BIO, a spokesper­son con­firmed, the lat­est large phar­ma to back out of the group.

“​​At this time, we be­lieve there are oth­er ar­eas we can fo­cus our re­sources,” a GSK spokesper­son said in a state­ment. The news was first re­port­ed by STAT on Fri­day.

GSK joins four oth­er large com­pa­nies that have left BIO in the last two years, which is large­ly made up of small­er biotech com­pa­nies around the world. Pfiz­er, UCB, Ab­b­Vie and Take­da pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced plans to de­part. The spokesper­son con­firmed that GSK re­mains part of the trade group PhRMA, which rep­re­sents larg­er phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies.   

A spokesper­son for BIO said the org con­tin­ues to add mem­bers and “has nev­er been stronger both fi­nan­cial­ly and or­ga­ni­za­tion­al­ly to ex­e­cute on our strate­gic pri­or­i­ties to ad­vance biotech­nol­o­gy.”

PhRMA has al­so dealt with de­par­tures in the last two years, in­clud­ing As­traZeneca, Ab­b­Vie and gener­ic drug­mak­er Te­va.

The bio­phar­ma lob­by­ing land­scape has shift­ed since the pas­sage of the In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act and its in­clu­sion of drug pric­ing re­forms. Ex­ec­u­tives and in­vestors have had to grap­ple with bi­par­ti­san ef­forts to reel in drug prices, and leg­is­la­tors’ fo­cus on drug­mak­ers.

The cul­prit, BIO and PhRMA have ar­gued, are phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­agers, who con­trol the drug for­mu­la­ries that in­sur­ance com­pa­nies of­fer. Re­forms aimed at the PBM in­dus­try have ad­vanced through Con­gress and ear­li­er this year, the three largest PBMs were sued by the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion over in­sulin prices.

Ed­i­tor’s note: This sto­ry was up­dat­ed to in­clude a state­ment from a BIO spokesper­son.