Press Releases
Watchdog: Big Pharma Back in Court Defending “Right” to Price Gouge Seniors
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb and Janssen will deliver opening arguments before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for their case against the Biden-Harris administration’s historic Medicare negotiation program. Since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, the pharmaceutical industry has filed at least 9 lawsuits against the Biden-Harris administration and spent over $400 million lobbying, all in an attempt to undermine Medicare’s negotiation authority. So far, the industry has lost 6 of those lawsuits.
Despite boasting astronomical profits, big drug companies keep clogging up courtrooms with a dubious claim that they cannot afford to offer more reasonable prices to seniors on life-saving medicines. Big Pharma may prolong the legal process to protect profits and power, but the Biden-Harris drug negotiation program is working to ensure millions of seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries will see lower costs. It’s critical that the courts continue to side with American patients, not Big Pharma. No senior should have to choose between food and medicine because some pharma CEOs see no limit on profit.”
Tony Carrk, Executive Director of Accountable.US
After their initial case was tossed out, industry allies of AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Janssen filed amicus briefs before the Third Circuit on their behalf. While these filers dressed up their support for industry with supposedly neutral concerns about constitutionality and echoed debunked claims about harm to innovation, they failed to mention they had collectively taken nearly $4.8 million from PhRMA since 2019, per Accountable.US analysis.
