In the frigid weeks of the US Congressional winter recess, the halls of government buildings around Capitol Hill are empty and quiet. But things are far from quiet for Frankie Trull, a biotechnology lobbyist. With the changing of the Congressional guard following the 2008 election comes a changing of the staff members that liaise with Trull's Washington, DC-based boutique firm, Policy Directions. This means a whole new set of people she has to convince of the merits of biotech.
In many ways, "lobbyist" has become something of a bad word, thanks to plenty of negative media coverage. It is not something one would immediately associate with biotech. Pharma, certainly so—together, the top 10 pharmaceutical companies doled out at least $70 million in 2008 alone on lobbying on the Hill.
But biotech trade organizations like the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) are also powerful lobbyists on behalf ...
