About P4ADNOW

Patients For Affordable Drugs Now is a bipartisan national patient organization focused exclusively on policies to lower drug prices. We help educate and mobilize patients in support of legislation to fix our broken system. To maintain our independence, we do not accept donations from organizations that profit from the development or distribution of prescription drugs. Touted by The Hill as “a leading drug pricing advocacy group,” Patients For Affordable Drugs Now helps patients share their drug pricing stories and ensure lawmakers take action.

Patients For Affordable Drugs Now works to change the policies that allow prescription drug prices to remain so high in the United States. Our goal is simple: to ensure every person in the U.S. can access the medications they need at prices they can afford.

We mobilize patients and allies to push for real, lasting policy change by engaging directly with lawmakers, the White House, and federal agencies when decisions are being made about drug pricing. Since 2017, we have supported patients from across the country as they:

• Meet with members of Congress and their staff to share firsthand experiences with high drug prices
• Participate in advocacy campaigns that influence legislation and federal rulemaking
• Speak out in moments when federal policies are at risk of being weakened or rolled back

We advocate for legislation that delivers real relief for patients – such as bills that curb patent abuse, promote competition, and strengthen Medicare’s ability to lower drug prices – and we oppose proposals that would undermine those reforms or lock in higher costs for patients and taxpayers. Through patient advocacy and direct engagement with lawmakers, Patients For Affordable Drugs Now helps drive the policy changes needed to build a drug pricing system that works for patients – not drug companies.

Patients For Affordable Drugs Now is governed by a bipartisan Board of Directors alongside CEO Merith Basey. The board members are:

• Robert Jones, Board Chair: Before joining GS Strategy Group in 2015, Robert worked for two cycles at the National Republican Congressional Committee as the West Regional Political Director in 2014 and as the Deputy Director of the Patriot Program in 2012.
• Jamila Headley: A Caribbean immigrant from Barbados, Jamila holds a PhD in public health and a master’s in global health from the University of Oxford. She has spent the past 18 years advancing health care and other social justice campaigns with movements and movement leaders on five continents.
• Dr. Gloria Tavera: A physician, scientist, and advocate, Gloria is a Gastroenterology fellow at UCSF. She co-founded the global access to medicines non-profit Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) and was recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 for her work. She earned an MD/PhD studying bacterial gene networks in gastric cancer and a Master’s in Immunology from Case Western Reserve, with additional research experience in malaria immunology at the NIH.

Patients For Affordable Drugs Now is a 501(c)(4) organization.

• You can view our 2023 990 form here.
• You can view our 2022 990 form here.
• You can view our 2021 990 form here.
• You can view our 2020 990 form here.
• You can view our 2019 990 form here.
• You can view our 2018 990 form here.
• You can view our 2017 990 form here.

David Mitchell founded Patients For Affordable Drugs Now in 2016 after confronting the high cost of prescription drugs firsthand. Diagnosed in 2010 with multiple myeloma – an incurable blood cancer – David relied on medications that cost $300,000 a year, which made clear to him just how broken the U.S. drug pricing system is for patients who depend on these medicines to survive.

Recognizing that patients were being excluded from drug-pricing debates, David built a national movement that placed patients at the center of policymaking. In doing so, he became one of the most influential patient advocates in modern U.S. health policy.

Under his leadership, patient advocates helped drive and defend system-changing reforms, challenged pharmaceutical industry influence, and blocked numerous pharma-backed proposals that would have raised costs or weakened protections for patients. Most significantly, Patients For Affordable Drugs Now played a central role in the passage of the drug price reforms included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 – the most consequential federal action on prescription drug pricing in decades – breaking a long-standing barrier by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time.

Across six Congresses and three presidential administrations, Democratic and Republican, David helped shift the national conversation on drug pricing. His work demonstrated that lowering drug prices is not a partisan issue and that organized patients can change the balance of power.

David retired from P4ADNow in 2025 and passed away on January 2, 2026.