Nonprofit Working to Block Drug Imports

A nonprofit organization that has orchestrated a wide-reaching campaign against foreign drug imports has deep ties to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America or PhRMA, the powerful lobbying group that includes Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Bayer.

The nonprofit called the Partnership for Safe Medicines has recently emerged as a leading voice against Senate bills that would allow drugs to be imported from Canada.

Both the lobbying group and the nonprofit partnership have gone to great lengths to show that drugmakers are not driving what they describe as a grass-roots effort to fight imports, including an expensive advertising blitz and an event  that featured high-profile former FBI officials and a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner.