Big Drug Companies and Their MAGA Republican Allies Are Putting Profits Over Patients Detailed in New Report.
Washington, D.C. — Protect Our Care is releasing a new report detailing pharmaceutical companies’ sky-high revenues as they continue charging unaffordable prices to patients. The report found that in 2023, 16 of the largest drug companies raked in $684 billion, and they spent $106 billion rewarding shareholders. For too long, drug companies have been allowed to charge whatever they want, gouging patients to the point that more than 1 in 3 Americans report cutting pills or skipping doses because they can’t afford their medication.
“Drug companies’ greed is only getting worse,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “Our nation’s seniors are depending on the savings from the Inflation Reduction Act so they don’t have to choose between filling their prescription and filling their refrigerator. In the richest country in the world, no one should be cutting pills or skipping doses. It is reprehensible that big drug companies and MAGA Republicans continue to put profits over people as they work to block negotiations in court and gut the program in Congress.”
Many of the drugmakers highlighted in the report are the same companies in court now to stop Medicare’s ability to negotiate lower drug prices under the Inflation Reduction Act. Drug companies have also been working behind the scenes with Republican lawmakers to repeal all of the Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions to make prescription drugs more affordable for millions of seniors. Big drug companies claim that the new law to make drugs more affordable will harm patients, but in reality, they’re telling investors the opposite and spending billions on rewarding their investors through stock buybacks and dividends, paying their executives millions, and spending millions lobbying to keep their prices high.
Key Points:
- We followed the 2023 earnings reports of 16 drug companies.
- These 16 companies reported $684.1 billion in total global revenue and have announced dividend payments and stock buybacks totaling $105.9 billion.
- The seven publicly held companies currently suing to ban Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices reported $343 billion in revenue. Those same companies reported shareholder compensation in the form of stock buybacks and dividends totaling $53 billion.