With help from Daniel Lippman ORPHAN DRUGMAKERS HIRE HOLLAND & KNIGHT: Manufacturers of drugs for rare diseases have enlisted the help of veteran tax lobbyist Joshua Odintz of Holland & Knight to stave off additional cuts to a tax incentive for the development of such drugs in any reconciliation bill this year. — Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, BioMarin Pharmaceutical and Alkermes have all hired Odintz, a former counsel for the Senate Finance Committee and former Treasury tax policy chief, since November to work on the provision, according to lobbying disclosures. — President-elect Donald Trump and House Republicans are huddling this weekend to chart their way forward on a massive reconciliation package to, in part, extend a series of expiring tax cuts from the 2017 law. That law spared what’s known as the orphan drug tax credit from being repealed altogether, after aggressive lobbying from drugmakers and advocates for rare disease patients, instead slashing the tax credit for clinical testing costs in half. — The tax break also survived being targeted by Democrats’ reconciliation package, which also exempted products approved to treat a single rare disease from drug price negotiations. Drugmakers have pushed to expand that exemption as well as for the tax credit’s restoration in upcoming tax talks. However, with Republicans expected to be even more wary of the price tag of any tax extensions, it could be on the chopping block once again to offset the cost of the bill. MORE NEW BUSINESS: The Society for Human Resource Management, which represents HR professionals, hired a team at Mercury that includes former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and James Messner, a former deputy political director for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, as employers brace for scrutiny over their diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the new Congress and administration. — The trade group this summer dropped the “E” from its DEI policy plank amid a backlash from the right that has only accelerated corporate America’s reversal on promoting such policies in the weeks after Trump’s win. The latest high-profile walkback came today, when Meta announced that it would abandon diversity considerations in its hiring, training and supply chain processes. Appointees for the new administration, meanwhile, have pledged to end federal programs in effect. — And Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s pick to lead DOJ’s civil rights department, has experience “suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers,” Trump noted in announcing the appointment. — The day of Mercury’s hire, Scalise took aim at inclusionary hiring practices in a radio interview while discussing possible missteps by federal agencies in the lead-up to the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans. “Some of these agencies have gotten so wrapped up in the DEI movement that their main focus is diversity and inclusion rather than security. We have to get back to that core mission,” he said. TGIF and welcome to PI. Send tips: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. KENNEDY’S SHERPA: HHS Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “has an experienced guide to shepherd him to confirmation in the Senate,” our Marcia Brown, Daniel Payne, Chelsea Cirruzzo, Grace Yarrow and Robert King report: Ken Nahigian, one half of founding duo of strategic comms shop Nahigian Strategies and a former Senate aide who ran Trump’s 2017 transition, according to four people familiar with the matter. — “After working on Trump’s transition in 2017, he and his firm secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal consulting contracts through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He once lobbied for health care interests, including the Israeli drugmaker Teva Pharmaceuticals and the Coalition for Access Now, which promotes cannabidiol, a marijuana derivative, for medical purposes.” — “Nahigian is working with Katie Miller, who was then-Vice President Mike Pence’s communications director and is married to Trump adviser Stephen Miller.” Miller, who is also a Senate alum and works for P2 Pathway Public Affairs, “is handling the communications around Kennedy’s confirmation process” as the onetime Democratic presidential candidate seeks to assuage concerns about his views on everything from vaccines to pesticides and abortion rights. BLACKBURN AIDE JOINS BGR: Chris Kelly has left the Hill after six years working for Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), most recently as her health policy director, to join BGR Group. He’ll be a vice president in the firm’s health and life science practice and work with clients in both D.C. and Nashville. FFYF ADDS 3: First Five Years Fund, an advocacy group pushing for access to quality child care and early learning, is bolstering its government relations operation as advocates gear up for a new Congress and presidential administration. — The group hired Melissa Edwards as director of operations and chief of staff, Abby Holland as government affairs manager and Holly Evans as a policy and research analyst, and promoted Christy Felling to managing director of communications and marketing. — Edwards previously served as the executive director of operations for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Holland previously served as senior legislative assistant for former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Evans was previously an intern at the Policy Equity Group. HOW ZELENSKYY HOPES TO WOO THE RIGHT: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “sat down for a three-hour, expletive-laden interview with American podcaster Lex Fridman this week as part of a Ukrainian push to use nonmainstream media to reach out to Republican lawmakers and their supporters” ahead of Trump’s swearing-in, according to The Washington Post’s David L. Stern. — As a wave of Ukraine aid skeptics sweeps into power in Washington and Zelenskyy’s troops struggle to beat back Russia’s advances, the Ukrainian leader “has tasked his media team to move beyond traditional Western media — which is always ready to air an interview with the Ukrainian president — and talk to the outlets that other Americans are listening to, especially those who voted for Trump, explained his advisers.” — Zelenskyy “watched Fridman and Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the United States, and ‘he thought that this is something that hasn’t been tried yet,’ said the individual close to the administration. ‘And to really understand Ukraine and what’s going on in the war, you need more than a two-minute sound bite.’” ANNALS OF ETHICS: “The Trump Organization on Friday issued a new ethics agreement that it said would govern how the family and President-elect Donald J. Trump would conduct themselves over the next four years to try to avoid conflicts of interest,” The New York Times’ Eric Lipton reports. — “The measures described in the document largely echo pledges the family made eight years ago, when Mr. Trump first became president,” including the review of major transactions valued over $10 million by an outside ethics attorney as well as keeping the incoming president’s assets in a trust and limiting his access to financial details. — “But the Trump family is not pledging to halt any new international real estate deals, unlike eight years ago. Instead, it is agreeing only to ‘no new transactions with foreign governments,’ reflecting a plan that was first shared with The New York Times in December.” — While Eric Trump maintained that the ethics plan goes “above and beyond,” experts “immediately dismissed the moves as insufficient,” pointing, for example, to the company’s announcement earlier this week that it will host a golf tournament in the spring hosted by the Saudi-funded LIV Golf league.
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