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WASHINGTON, DC — AstraZeneca announced nearly $2 billion in Q2 2024 earnings today—a shocking total earned amid the company’s ongoing legal challenge to block the Biden-Harris administration from lowering medication costs for millions of Americans. The pharmaceutical giant is one of several companies appealing recent court rulings defending Medicare’s negotiation authority.

 

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Despite losing in federal court again and again, big pharma remains determined to keep the Biden-Harris administration from lowering drug costs for seniors. The industry shuffles from one courtroom to the next claiming they should be able to inflate prices on life-saving medicine without limit, but their arguments continue to fall flat. In the court of public opinion, Big Pharma and their allies in Congress have already lost. No one buys that big drug companies need to charge the highest prices in the world while they boast of record industry profits in the same breath.”

Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk

AstraZeneca’s own Farxiga—which treats diabetes, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease—is one of the first 10 drugs impacted by the Biden administration’s cost lowering program. Farxiga has cost Medicare nearly $6 billion as of 2022—an average of $4,046 per patient.

Farxiga has increased in price by 54% since its launch in 2014 and AstraZeneca charges U.S. patients seven times as much as customers in Switzerland, and nearly 15 times more than customers in Australia. While industry continues to fight implementation of Medicare’s new negotiation power, the program is expected to save nearly 19 million seniors and other Medicare Part D enrollees $400 a year by 2025.

A recent report from government watchdog Accountable.US revealed that the eight pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the ten medications chosen for Medicare price negotiation have spent far less on research and development compared to what they spent on other priorities like political activity, executive compensation and handouts to wealthy investors in 2023. [READ THE FULL REPORT]

While the pharmaceutical industry continues to push against Biden-Harris administration efforts to lower drug costs, national polling has shown strong support for the programs. 

READ MORE FROM ACCOUNTABLE.US

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