Washington, DC — Protect Our Care is releasing a new report detailing pharmaceutical companies’ sky-high revenues as they continue charging unaffordable prices to patients. In total, the 16 top companies reported $176.7 billion in total global revenue for the third quarter, and have rewarded shareholders by announcing dividend payments and stock buybacks totalling $26.8 billion. According to the report, the same big drug companies that are trying to block Medicare negotiation in court had more than $100 billion in revenue in Q3 alone.
Passed last year by President Biden and Democrats in Congress, the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program will finally give Medicare the authority to negotiate lower prices, making prescription drugs more affordable for millions of seniors. Big drug companies are talking in court about all the harm they will suffer from negotiations, but 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 Q3 2023 earnings reports of 16 drug companies.
- These 16 companies reported $176.7 billion in total global revenue for the third quarter, and have announced dividend payments and stock buybacks totalling $26.8 billion.
- The eight publicly traded drug makers of the first ten drugs selected for negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act brought in more than $100 billion in the third quarter alone, and a total of $285 billion in the first nine months of 2023.
- These eight drug companies have rewarded shareholders with nearly $20 billion in stock buybacks to date in 2023.
- Contrary to their fearmongering to lawmakers and patients about diminished incentives to invest in innovation, top drug companies bragged to Wall Street about their investment in new, innovative drugs.
“Drug companies’ greed knows no bounds,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “Our nation’s seniors depend on the savings from the Inflation Reduction Act so they don’t have to choose between filling their prescription and filling their refrigerator. Make no mistake: big drug companies are only trying to roll back the law to protect their outrageous profits.”