Health care law: Planned, well-financed lobbying strategy leads to impressive list of wins for U.S. drug industry

Emerging Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (Pink Sheets:EHSI). The U.S. drug industry fended off price curbs and other hefty restrictions in The President's health care law even as it prepares for plenty of new business when an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans gain health coverage. Lobbyists beat back proposals to allow importation of low-cost medicines and to have Medicare negotiate drug prices with companies. They also defeated efforts to require more industry rebates for the 9 million beneficiaries of both Medicare and Medicaid, and to bar brand-name drug makers' payments to generic companies to delay the marketing of competitor products.

The impressive list of wins is testament to a carefully planned and well-financed lobbying strategy, led by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's deep-pocketed trade group. The trade group has been led by former Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin, whose $4.5 million in earnings in 2008, the most recent figure available, underscore the high stakes for the industry.

Costly brand-name biotech drugs won 12 years of protection against cheaper generic competitors, a boon for products that comprise 15 percent of pharmaceutical sales. The industry will have to provide 50 percent discounts beginning next year to Medicare beneficiaries in the "doughnut hole" gap in pharmaceutical coverage, but those price cuts plus gradually rising federal subsidies will mean more elderly people will purchase more drugs.

Emerging Healthcare Solutions focuses on enabling new potentially profitable medical technology to become a reality in a sector that includes Novartis (NYSE:NVS), Merck & Company, Inc. (NYSE:MRK), Pfizer, Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN).