PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl said in 2017 the association had no position on a Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. However, in 2016 PhRMA was among the largest donors to the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) group that spent $10 million on TV ads to support the GOP effort, according to Kaiser Health News. https://bit.ly/2K8wWkX

PhRMA gave AAN—a so-called "dark money" group because it doesn't have to disclose its donors—$6.1 million in 2016, according to PhRMA's latest tax filing. That was the association's largest grant that year, exponentially higher than the $130,000 PhRMA had given AAN in 2015 (which was not an election year), according to Kaiser Health News. According to AAN's website, the organization promotes "center-right policies based on the principles of freedom, limited government, American exceptionalism and strong national security."

Robert Zirkelbach, EVP for Public Affairs at PhRMA, told Kaiser Health News it is inaccurate to link the association's grant to the AAN repeal and replace campaign. He said PhRMA donations to AAN and other groups were not intended to achieve specific goals.

"We seek to work with organizations we agree with as well as those where we have disagreements on public policy issues," Zirkelbach told Kaiser.

Kaiser Health News noted that in 2010, before the ACA was passed by Congress, PhRMA was a public supporter of the bill, and funded a multimillion TV ad campaign in support of it.

In 2017, Ubl said in an interview that PhRMA had "not taken a position" on the Republican repeal and replace bill. But the 2016 grant to AAN, if it was in fact meant to support GOP efforts, would have been a way to back the measure behind the scenes.

The GOP bill would have eliminated a federal fee on drug companies, saving the industry an estimated $28 billion over 10 years.

AAN ran the ads in 75 congressional districts. The repeal and replace effort died in the Senate in the summer of 2017.

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