| New reporting from the Milwaukee Courier details how Bryan Steil is bankrolled by Big Pharma, taking donations from Big Pharma lobbyists before siding with Big Pharma and casting votes against lowering drug prices.
In 2022, Steil took over a thousand dollars from a lobbyist for PhRMA – and “that same day, Steil voted against the Affordable Insulin Now Act.” And in 2025, Steil voted for a bill with billions of dollars in handouts to Big Pharma, two days after he took a contribution from “a lobbyist for dozens of major pharmaceutical companies.”
THE KICKER: Steil is bankrolled by “nearly $220,000 in campaign cash from the pharmaceutical industry.”
DCCC Spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Bryan Steil cashed checks from Big Pharma lobbyists, then voted their way: voting no on lower drug prices while rubber-stamping handouts for the pharmaceutical industry. Wisconsin families are struggling with rising costs of care, but Steil sides with his Big Pharma donors instead.”
Read more:
Milwaukee Courier: Pharma lobbyists give Bryan Steil donations, in turn he votes in their favor
- Congressman Bryan Steil took donations from Big Pharma lobbyists right before voting in favor of the pharmaceutical companies.
- On July 1, 2025, Steil received a $500 contribution from pharma lobbyist Dan Todd and two days later, voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, which contained a provision that gave a $8.8 billion handout to Big Pharma, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
- Todd leads the Todd Strategy Group’s “work on Medicare policy” and “broader federal health care strategy,” according to the firm’s website. At the time of his donation, Todd was a lobbyist for dozens of major pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Bayer, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, among others.
- In the period around Steil’s vote, Todd specifically lobbied the House on “issues related to rare disease and orphan drugs,” “drug pricing,” and the “implementation of Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”
- The OBBB weakened Medicare’s ability to negotiate the price of certain drugs that receive an “orphan drug designation,” including leading cancer treatments like Darzalex, Keytruda, and Opdivo. Democratic Health Committee members said of the OBBB, “This is a trojan horse policy that will undermine efforts to lower prescription drug prices for years to come.”
- This is not the first known time that Steil accepted pharma funds and then voted in their favor.
- On March 31, 2022, Steil received $1,500 in campaign cash from Robert Wood, a lobbyist for PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s trade and lobbying group.
- That same day, Steil voted against the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would have capped insulin prices at either $35 per month or 25% of an insurance plan’s negotiated price, whichever is lower.
- At the time of Wood’s donation, he was lobbying on behalf of PhRMA “regarding ongoing public policy concerns impacting the innovative biopharmaceutical industry in Congress and throughout the Administration.”
- Wood’s other clients included Lyndra Therapeutics, a company developing an oral insulin pill and for-profit healthcare company Centene Corporation.
- Steil has taken nearly $220,000 in campaign cash from the pharmaceutical industry while running for and serving as a member of Congress.
- And he has repeatedly voted against bills to lower prescription drug costs for Wisconsinites:
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