The Auchincloss Influence Machine: How One Biotech Firm Built a Policy Pipeline

December 01, 2025

In our previous investigation, we documented how Rep. Jake Auchincloss received over $815,000 from pharmaceutical industry sources from 2020-2024. One donor network stands out for its sophistication: RA Capital Management, a Boston-based biotech venture capital firm that has constructed an influence machine connecting campaign contributions, policy research, and legislative outcomes in ways that exemplify modern corporate capture of the political process.

This is the story of how one firm gave six figures to a congressman’s campaign, funded a 501(c) advocacy organization to produce industry-friendly “research,” and then watched that congressman cite their organization’s analysis while championing their policy framework—all while managing an $8 billion portfolio whose returns depend on blocking meaningful drug price reform.

The Money: RA Capital’s Investment in Auchincloss

RA Capital Management emerged as the single largest donor to Jake Auchincloss’s Victory Fund in the 2024 election cycle, contributing $104,650 through combined donations from the firm’s partners and employees.¹ This extraordinary sum from a single investment firm raises immediate questions about what RA Capital expects in return.

The firm’s investment in Auchincloss didn’t stop at the Victory Fund. RA Capital partners also contributed approximately $35,000 to Auchincloss’s “Beyond Thoughts and Prayers” Leadership PAC —a PAC that allows members of Congress to raise money ostensibly for other candidates but which functions as a slush fund for political activities and relationship-building.²

The personal donations are equally revealing. Peter Kolchinsky, RA Capital’s managing partner and co-founder, personally donated $3,300 to Auchincloss’s 2024 campaign committee.³ His wife, Anna Kolchinsky, contributed another $3,300.² The total identified RA Capital network contributions to Auchincloss is over $146,000.

The Business Model: Why RA Capital Cares About Drug Prices

RA Capital Management is not a pharmaceutical company — it’s something potentially more influential. The firm manages approximately $8 billion in assets invested primarily in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.⁴ Their business model is straightforward: invest in drug companies, help those companies develop and price medications, and profit when those drugs reach market at maximum prices.

This creates a direct financial interest in opposing drug price negotiation. When Medicare negotiates lower prices for medications, the pharmaceutical companies producing those drugs see reduced revenues. When pharmaceutical company revenues fall, the value of RA Capital’s investments falls. When investment values fall, RA Capital’s management fees and carried interest fall.

The math is simple: every dollar saved by Medicare through drug price negotiation is a dollar lost by RA Capital’s portfolio companies — and ultimately by RA Capital itself.

This explains why RA Capital would invest $146,000 in a single congressman. If that congressman helps block or water down drug pricing legislation, the return on investment could be measured in billions across RA Capital’s portfolio. A $146,000 political investment protecting $8 billion in assets is simply rational business strategy.

The Organization: No Patient Left Behind

Here’s where the influence network becomes sophisticated. In 2020, Peter Kolchinsky founded No Patient Left Behind (NPLB), a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that presents itself as a patient advocacy group while consistently producing research and policy recommendations aligned with pharmaceutical industry interests.⁵

RA Capital’s own website acknowledges the connection: the firm states it “may provide support” to NPLB along with other advocacy organizations.⁶ This carefully worded disclosure confirms that RA Capital—whose $8 billion portfolio depends on high drug prices—funds an organization that claims to speak for patients while opposing aggressive price controls.

NPLB is not a grassroots patient organization. It was founded by a biotech venture capitalist whose personal wealth depends on pharmaceutical industry profits. It is funded by a firm managing $8 billion in pharmaceutical investments. And it produces “research” that consistently reaches conclusions favorable to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Patients For Affordable Drugs organization has identified NPLB as a “pharma-industry funded” group that opposes Medicare drug price negotiation while claiming to represent patient interests.⁷ This is astroturfing at its most sophisticated: create an organization with “Patient” in the name, fund it with pharmaceutical industry money, and deploy it to oppose policies that would actually lower patient costs.

The Policy Pipeline: From NPLB “Research” to Congressional Action

The influence machine’s sophistication becomes clear when examining how NPLB’s work translates into Auchincloss’s legislative activities.

In 2023, Auchincloss introduced the Copay Adjustment to Protect Patients (CAP) Act. In his press release announcing the legislation, Auchincloss cited analysis from NPLB, claiming their research showed that “if the IRA’s inflation rebate were applied to commercial prices… patient cost-sharing could increase by roughly 36%.”⁸

The circular nature is remarkable:

1. RA Capital gives $146,000 to Auchincloss
2. RA Capital funds NPLB
3. NPLB produces “research” on drug pricing
4. Auchincloss cites NPLB’s research in legislation
5. The legislation advances pharmaceutical industry interests

Even more telling: NPLB’s Executive Director Peter Rubin was quoted in Auchincloss’s own press release praising the CAP Act, stating that Auchincloss was “leading the charge” on the issue.⁸ The congressman announces legislation citing an organization’s research, and that organization’s director appears in the press release endorsing the congressman. The coordination is barely concealed.

The Framework: Auchincloss Champions Kolchinsky’s Ideas

The policy alignment extends beyond single pieces of legislation. Peter Kolchinsky has developed a framework called “Generalized Cost Effectiveness Analysis” (GCEA) —a n approach to drug pricing that, not coincidentally, would preserve pharmaceutical industry pricing power while appearing to embrace cost-effectiveness principles.

In a 2023 BioCentury interview, Auchincloss explicitly endorsed Kolchinsky’s framework, stating: “I’d like to see Generalized Cost Effectiveness Analysis become the norm.”⁹

A sitting congressman — who has received over $146,000 from RA Capital and its network — publicly champions the policy framework developed by RA Capital’s managing partner. This is policy capture.

The GCEA framework differs from genuine cost-effectiveness analysis in ways that benefit pharmaceutical companies. Traditional cost-effectiveness analysis asks whether a drug’s benefits justify its price. Kolchinsky’s framework introduces additional variables that tend to justify higher prices. For RA Capital’s portfolio companies, this distinction is worth billions.

Notably, BioCentury reported that Kolchinsky and NPLB “have advocated for [GCEA] on Capitol Hill and in academic settings.”¹⁰

The Full Picture: NPLB as a Lobbying Operation

The Auchincloss relationship is just one piece of a much larger influence operation. Since 2020, NPLB has run sustained campaigns targeting Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, CMS, FDA, NIH, USTR, and the White House—all while presenting itself as a patient advocacy group rather than what it functionally is: the policy arm of an $8 billion investment firm.

NPLB’s own website states that the organization “organizes stakeholders to engage policymakers on key issues”¹¹ — a description that sounds a lot like lobbying. And industry observers agree: The Pharma Letter has explicitly called NPLB a “lobbying group.”¹²

The CBO Pressure Campaign: 350+ Investors, $309 Billion, One Ask

The clearest example of NPLB functioning as a lobbying operation came in January 2024, when the organization launched a pressure campaign targeting the Congressional Budget Office.

NPLB organized 350+ biotech investors and executives representing $309 billion in assets under management and 624 drugs in development to sign a letter urging CBO to change how it models the impact of drug pricing legislation.¹³ The explicit goal: get CBO to adopt assumptions that would make the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug pricing provisions look more damaging to innovation, thereby building the case for “a legislative fix to equalize negotiation for all drugs at 13 years.”¹⁴

This wasn’t abstract policy discussion. It was a coordinated campaign by parties with direct financial stakes in the outcome, aimed at changing a federal agency’s methodology to support a specific legislative change. Peter Kolchinsky signed onto the effort in his dual role as NPLB founder and RA Capital managing partner, stating that “just about every noteworthy biotech investment firm has signed onto this letter.”¹³

Serial Lobbying of CMS on IRA Implementation (2022-2025)

NPLB has sent a steady stream of letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, each offering detailed policy prescriptions for how CMS should implement the Inflation Reduction Act:

• March 2023: Letter warning that IRA exemptions “fail to provide adequate protections for orphan drugs and other small molecule treatments”¹¹
• April 2023: Letter “urging fixes” to CMS’s IRA implementation plan¹¹
• July 2024: Letter demanding that savings from Medicare price-setting go to “patients not plans”¹¹
• January 2025: Letter pushing CMS to cover anti-obesity medications and tighten Medicare Advantage oversight¹¹

Each letter advances positions that benefit RA Capital’s portfolio companies while framing the asks in patient-friendly language.

The 2022 Campaign Against the Inflation Reduction Act

Before the IRA passed, RA Capital and NPLB ran a coordinated campaign to weaken or block the legislation. On July 8, 2022. RA Capital published an open letter to Senator Schumer and Finance Chair Wyden, hosted on its “Rapport” blog, arguing the Senate drug bill was “not good enough for patients, bad for biopharma innovation” and soliciting signatures via Google Form.¹⁵ A few weeks later, NPLB released sign-on letters claiming 33 investors managing $86 billion and 1,000+ investors, researchers, patients, and innovators opposed the Senate bill.¹¹ The coordination was seamless: RA Capital platforms the narrative, NPLB mobilizes the coalition, and both claim to speak for patients while protecting pharmaceutical industry revenues.

The Disclosure Gap

Despite this sustained pattern of organized advocacy targeting specific federal decisions, there is no public record of RA Capital, NPLB, or Peter Kolchinsky registering as federal lobbyists under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re violating the law — the LDA has thresholds and exemptions that allow substantial influence activity without triggering registration requirements. But it does mean that voters and policymakers have no easy way to see the full scope of this operation or the money behind it.

RA Capital itself has been careful about this distinction. A 2025 Stifel report quoted Kolchinsky describing related efforts as “marketing, communication, education, and brand building, not lobbying.”¹⁶ Yet the same materials describe mobilizing the biopharma ecosystem to shape what drug-pricing policies voters and politicians support.

The gap between how this activity is legally classified and how it actually functions is exactly the problem. When an $8 billion investment firm can fund a “patient advocacy” organization to pressure CBO, flood CMS with implementation demands, and advocate policy frameworks “on Capitol Hill” — all without registering as lobbyists — the system is working exactly as designed. Just not for patients.

Conclusion: The Price of Policy Capture

RA Capital’s $146,000 investment in Jake Auchincloss is a bargain. For less than the cost of a single year’s treatment with many specialty drugs, they’ve helped secure a congressman who:

• Cites their organization’s research in legislation
• Champions their managing partner’s policy framework in interviews
• Receives endorsements from their organization’s director in official press releases
• Opposes aggressive drug price negotiation that would harm their portfolio

This is what modern corporate capture looks like. It’s not bags of cash in parking garages. It’s tax-deductible donations to 501(c)(4) organizations. It’s “research” that reaches industry-favorable conclusions. It’s policy frameworks with academic-sounding names. It’s press releases where everyone praises everyone else.

And it’s $8 billion in pharmaceutical investments protected by a congressman who owes his campaign treasury to the firm managing those investments.

Massachusetts District 4 deserves a representative who answers to patients, not to the biotech venture capitalists who profit from their suffering.

---

References