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WASHINGTON, DC — On the heels of a series of lawsuits led by AstraZeneca, PhRMA, and their industry peers to block implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca saw profits double over the last nine months, with today’s quarterly earnings of $1.37 billion beating Wall Street expectations. Despite industry objections, AstraZeneca’s Farxiga, used to treat type 2 diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease, is one of the first 10 Rx drugs selected for the initial round of Medicare drug negotiations. The program is expected to save nearly 19 million seniors and other Medicare Part D enrollees $400 a year by 2025. AstraZeneca’s sky-high earnings come as 3-in-10 Americans say they cannot afford life saving medicine. 

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Another day, another drug company brags of billion-dollar profits while suing to stop the historic Biden law working to lower drug costs for struggling seniors. Big Pharma and their lackeys in Congress are fighting tooth and nail to undo the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program so that companies can keep squeezing maximum profits out of seniors, including many choosing between food and medicine. Too many corporations motivated by greed have jacked up prices despite enormous profits, and Big Pharma is among the worst offenders. Congressional Republicans should be celebrating the historic Biden law allowing Medicare to negotiate cheaper drug prices, not helping pharma CEOs and lobbyists undo it in pursuit of more political donations.”

Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Accountable.US.

While drug companies claim that high prices are necessary to fund research and development, and that Medicare’s new power will force drugmakers to reduce spending on research, Accountable.US has previously found that the five-biggest U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies’ $112 billion in research and development spending from 2019 through 2021 had been outpaced by the $125 billion they spent on stock buybacks and dividends over the same period. Based on their own earnings reports, it’s clear these price hikes are just a way to extract more money from patients in need and redistribute it to wealthy shareholders.

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