Press Releases
Johnson & Johnson Celebrates Huge Earnings Amid Renewed Legal Assault on Medicare’s Negotiation Authority
Johnson & Johnson (J&J)—one of several pharmaceutical giants suing the Biden administration to block implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s historic Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program—beat Wall Street expectations today by announcing $4.7 billion in Q2 2024 earnings while seeing U.S. sales jump by 8%. The positive earnings report comes on the heels of an appeal J&J filed on Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit after its initial lawsuit against the drug negotiation program was tossed out by a federal judge in April.
J&J’s business boom also comes as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is expected to announce new prices for the first 10 under Medicare Part D selected for negotiation by September 1, 2024. Under its new legal authority, Medicare is currently negotiating lower prices on J&J’s Xarelto, Stelara, and Imbruvica. Between June 2022 and May 2023, Medicare spent more than $11 billion combined on the three drugs to benefit more than 1.3 million patients. Overall, the new prescription drug negotiation program is expected to save nearly 19 million seniors and other Medicare Part D enrollees $400 a year by 2025.
Many right-wing lawmakers in Congress who spend too much time at Pharma fundraisers claim Medicare doesn’t need the power to negotiate lower drug prices. But for big drug companies like Johnson & Johnson, no amount of profit will ever keep them from price-gouging seniors and patients in need. Greed is why Big Pharma is spamming the court system with lawsuits designed to go back to the dark days of charging whatever they please on life-saving medicine. The Biden administration’s historic Medicare negotiation program is pressing forward despite industry and right-wing obstruction to lower costs for millions of seniors, including many who literally choose between food and medicine.”
Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk
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